


Redamancy

by Asoreleks



Category: Captain America - All Media Types, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Dimension Travel, Drama, F/M, Hope, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Romance, Soulmates fic- sorta, Tragedy, major character deaths, romanogers - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-12-07
Updated: 2017-11-18
Packaged: 2018-09-07 04:52:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 11
Words: 73,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8783899
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Asoreleks/pseuds/Asoreleks
Summary: What do you do when you can’t love the person you want? Life may put obstacles in your path, but what if the obstacle is something intangible like obstinacy? One’s body can be a prison, if you let it. The point of life is an unknown and no living being can convince another that they know how it truly works. But there are always choices, and sometimes there are second chances.





	1. At The End of the World Next to You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I’ve finally started my emo-plot bunny story that I’ve been saying has been plaguing me for months now. This is kind of a soul-mates story, but it’s not quite the usual. The plot bunny was actually conceived before I started to pay a bit of attention to that trope, but then I realised that it could sort of fall under that umbrella. Anyway, I hope you like the story. This one’s going to be an angsty drama for the most part. I shall be channelling my stress, emotions, blah blah blah into it. I don’t know how I’m going to do this without Snickers…

Redamancy

 

Summary: What do you do when you can’t love the person you want? Life may put obstacles in your path, but what if the obstacle is something intangible like obstinacy? One’s body can be a prison, if you let it. The point of life is an unknown and no living being can convince another that they know how it truly works. But there are always choices, and sometimes there are second chances.

Rating: MATURE for now- I don’t know exactly how I’m going to express this story because it’s a work in progress, although I do know where I’m going with this.

 

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter One

 

At The End of the World Next to You

Sunday, 8 May 2016- Monday, 9 May 2016

For some strange reason even maximum security holding facilities for superhuman threats were quiet on Sundays. The general traffic and guard count was so low that Steve Rogers actually felt a little insulted. His companions in his stand against the powers that wanted to control them through legislation such as the Sokovian Accords had been incarcerated on the Raft on Thursday. Did they think he was so defeated he would not be able to attempt a rescue as soon as Sunday? Did they think he’d take the Lord’s Day off or something while the people who were his family suffered?

 

“Hey there, soldier,” a familiar voice crooned from the gangway above.

 

“Sharon?” Steve hissed in surprise. The blonde woman was standing on the opposite side of a stairwell from him, wore a midnight blue catsuit and had her hair in a tight bun.

 

“What? Did you think you’d have to bust this lot out on your own?” Sharon questioned with a smirk.

 

“No, um- how did you know I’d be here?” Steve asked with a frown. He had abandoned his old Captain America uniform, for a temporary set of stealth clothes which he’d gotten from King T’Challa.

 

“I lived next door to you for years,” Sharon answered as she trotted down the steps to join Steve. “It was my job to know you thoroughly: how you’d react to things.”

 

“I guess you were pretty good at it then,” Steve remarked, suppressing a wince but not quite managing to. Sharon looked at him with that too-understanding expression on her face, and he wished he was anywhere but there at that moment.

 

“Steve, what I know is that you’d react exactly how a brave honourable man would, you’d react as the brave and honourable man that you are,” Sharon told him comfortingly.

 

“Yeah, let’s get this show on the road,” Steve said with a huff. “I know that I can’t stand that my family is locked up in here. I need to get them out now.”

 

Sharon opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it. Steve was right to return their focus to the mission they were in the midst of. But she gave him a soft kiss on the lips for luck, just in case. They turned to the security console panel, which Sharon had the codes to, and gained access to the warden’s control room above the cell block that Clint, Wanda, Sam and Scott had been assigned to. Steve and Sharon were hyperaware of their surroundings, looking out for prison guards. Neither of them noticed the entity in the shadows watching them and their activities. 

 

‘Appalled’ was too small a word for the emotion engulfing Steve when he saw the state that Wanda was in. The collar on her throat and the vacant look in her eyes as she lay on the floor in a pool of her own drool killed him in a way that he hadn’t felt since he first saw intel on what the prisoners of the Nazi Death Camps had suffered back in World War Two. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t let the world get to that state ever again if he could help it. He wouldn’t let a human being, whose job was sanctioned by a government, do that to another human being, and here it was happening to Wanda, a girl he thought of as a younger sister. Her brother had died, and Steve had committed to being the family she would need and his actions had led to her landing up like this.

 

He was well acquainted with how much better he could have reacted to everything in hindsight. He always was.

 

“Wanda, it’s me,” Steve whispered as he picked the young woman up in his arms. “It’s Steve. I’m getting you out of here. I’m so sorry I didn’t get to you sooner.”

 

“Try not to speak to her,” Clint suggested hoarsely from behind him. Sharon had let the rest of the gang out, and Clint had gone straight for Wanda’s cell. He had also committed to the girl whose brother sacrificed his life enabling Clint to return home to his wife and kids. “They turned up the controls on that thing and whenever she focuses on the world outside her head it zaps her. She screamed for hours. Then she went quiet.”

 

Steve turned to face Clint, shifted Wanda carefully in his arms, and freed a hand to sign as he spoke: “They disable your hearing aids?”

 

“Yup,” Clint replied. “You know the drill. Sign it or say it straight to my face. Now let’s get the fuck out of this hellhole.”

 

Steve led the way out of the cell, and caught up with Sam and Scott who were directed by Sharon leading them out of their cell block.

 

Clinton Barton was an excellent espionage agent, but even he would not have seen the shadow unless it revealed itself on purpose. That is exactly what had happened just before the doors to their cells had opened. Natasha Romanov had signalled to him that she was there.

 

“The hen and chicks have moved to a new coop and have a hound to look after them,” Natasha had signed in code from her perch in a vent high above. Clint had understood that to mean that his wife Laura and their kids had been removed into protective custody with Nick Fury. Natasha then added that he should remain silent about her presence. Clint had looked at her quizzically, but went along with her ruse when Steve and Sharon Carter came slinking in a few minutes later.

 

Natasha followed them the whole way out, and even rendered a guard who had spotted them from a corner unconscious. Steve led them into a Quinjet that was as customised with the most bells and whistles he had ever seen and which Clint did not believe belonged to Tony Stark from the customisation layout. The blond man laid Wanda down on the sickbed carefully as Sharon powered up the Quinjet. Sam and Scott strapped themselves in and Clint covered the hatch as it closed, watching out for guards, but only declaring them clear to go after a certain redheaded tail had slipped in and made herself at home in one of the perfect shadowy stowaway spots on the craft. Clint strode over to the sickbed and helped Steve find the fine tools they would need to remove the collar. Clint ushered him to the front of the jet to help Sharon pilot, as they would need two heads to get them out of there. There was a storm raging outside and they were leaving a maximum security facility that would have all their guns focused on them the second that they detected the break.

 

They launched and Clint continued to operate on the collar to free Wanda. He’d seen the thing put on her and was hoping that he could get it off without any further damage to her mind. He needed a second set of hands and Sam popped up next to him. Clint needed a third set of hands and he had expected Scott, but Steve showed up. Scott took Steve’s place next to Sharon, much to her chagrin. Scott’s brand of chipper sarcasm was not compatible with Sharon’s personality, and was especially a mismatch in a high-stress escape situation.

 

But Wanda’s collar fell off. Wanda groaned aloud and her reddened eyes finally found tears once again. Clint climbed onto the bed to sit, wrapped his arms around Wanda and soothed her. Next to him, Steve looked ready to break, but the man held it together well. He returned to the front of the Quinjet and relieved Scott of his duty. Scott and Sam sat back down in their seats. They strapped themselves in and soon drifted off to sleep in exhaustion. Clint stayed awake, watching Steve glance back at Wanda in his arms, Sharon turning to check on him with very warm practised smiles and Natasha’s eyes glint at him from the dark corner she occupied silently.

 

Natasha watched Wanda for a very long time, before she turned her scrutinising gaze to the other occupants of the cabin. It was her way of caring, analysing them all like this. She examined Scott and Sam in turn before turning her attention to Sharon briefly. She sharply changed her focus to Steve and as she watched him it seemed as though Natasha was filling up with something until it got to the point just before she would overflow. She tore her eyes away and landed her gaze on Clint’s waiting regard. Clint knew what that was about, or at least he did in part. Very few could claim to know fully what was going on in Natasha Romanov’s head; and of those that could, none of them could claim that title at all hours of the day.

 

The flight to Wakanda, where Steve had acquired asylum for them was surprisingly short. Maybe it was just Clint’s perception, but when they arrived at the Wakandan Royal Airfield on the Palace Grounds, it felt like it had only been a few moments before that they were still stuck in their cells. But the sun had already broken above the horizon of that equatorial country by the time they had arrived.

 

King T’Challa had been waiting for them with a medical team on standby. The doctors and nurses had rushed Wanda to their medical centre while a few extra healthcare workers fussed over Sam and Scott. Clint waved the medical staff off with a glare as he helped power down the Quinjet. Sharon left the craft to do her post-flight exterior inspection and Steve waited at the ramp for him. Clint looked above at the spot where Natasha was and wondered what she was going to do. But she quickly satisfied his curiosity by flipping down to walk just behind him when he strode over to Steve.

 

Steve hadn’t noticed Natasha’s silent landing, or her quiet step, so he was visibly astonished when the Black Widow brushed past him, knocking him with her shoulder as she sought to get ahead of him. She was in her full black stealth gear and her hair was braided up into a crown on her head.

 

“Hello Steven,” Natasha greeted sarcastically without looking back.

 

Steve stared at her back as she stalked off determinedly. Clint glanced at his friend and answered the question that Steve was having trouble commanding his mouth to form.

 

“She was there the whole time,” Clint told him.

 

“Why didn’t she say anything? Let us know, let me know that she was there,” Steve spluttered.

 

“I don’t know. I have my theories as I always do. But if you want a real answer then you’d have to ask her yourself,” Clint sighed. “She obviously has reasons. Natasha doesn’t do random. Repressed -yes, but not random.”

 

The commotion had caught Sharon’s attention and she startled Steve once again when she strode forward from under the right wing and stood next to the ramp, her attention focused on Natasha’s back.

 

“What are you doing here, Romanoff?” Sharon called out.

 

Natasha paused and turned to face the blonde woman slowly. “I’m a political refugee, Carter. I have been for the past fifteen years of my life.”

 

The icy smile Natasha flashed her disappeared from her face before she spun around again and continued onwards. Clint glanced at Steve, reading his body language in order to determine his next probable action. But the blond pair to his left just stared after the redhead with matching frowns on their brows.

 

Clint exhaled a deep sigh. He moseyed on after the rest of their team, and allowed himself to start thinking about the hot shower and real sleep that he’d allow himself after he got to communicate his wife.

 

@>-`-,----

 

Sharon Fucking Carter.

 

‘Oh the Universe is hilarious,’ Natasha thought disgruntledly as she ripped her fingers through her hair unravelling one of the twin braids she’d had pinned to her head. Yes, she’d encouraged Steve to ask the woman out- _years ago_ \- but she was certainly not expecting this. ‘Who goes out with their Aunt’s ex-boyfriend after reconnecting at her funeral? Sharon Fucking Carter, that’s who.’

 

In Natasha’s opinion, Steve was obviously suffering from some sort of post-traumatic stress to be kissing the woman who he had been upset with for years because she lied to him about her identity. Natasha blamed herself. Agent Carter would have never even gotten the job, if Natasha had taken it. But Natasha had her reasons for declining, and they were damn good reasons. Still, Fury knew that Natasha would be one of the only people who would be able to determine how to relate to Steve Rogers and so had assigned them to be partners before the disaster that led to the fall of the old S.H.I.E.L.D. She had particular experiential expertise.

 

Natasha stared at her reflection in the mirror of the en suite bathroom of the guest room she’d been assigned in the Wakandan Royal Palace. The staff had been nice, and T’Challa’s wife Ororo had been nicer. Natasha had gotten to hold Wanda’s hand as she slept in comfort in the medical centre and she’d even been privy to where Bucky Barnes was being kept frozen in a cryogenic chamber. Natasha still wanted to rip out some non-essential organ from the man’s body for how he’d betrayed her. She understood that he had no choice due his programming, but she still seethed with anger and hurt over it years later.

 

Now Natasha was alone and scrutinising the stupidity of her half unravelled hair. She couldn’t stand the wavy length that should have been curly. The plaits had been made while her hair was wet so the waves had formed, but she’d been chemically straightening her hair for months now. It cut down on her blow-wave time. She had to have straight hair because it helped her blend in. She had to dye her hair this insipid shade of auburn because it was safer than the alarmingly fiery shade of her natural colour. Blend, blend, blend in to the background was her directive. Don’t stand out too much, don’t be memorable- but be distractingly captivating. She’d spent so much time being other people there was nothing to remember as _her_ anyway.

 

She needed to cut her hair. It had to go because the reason she had it, and her voice of survival gnawed at her derisively about it, was to appeal to someone else. She wanted to be liked. It was stupid, but she did. And here she was standing in a bathroom with nail scissors in her hand getting ready to hack her hair off because she knew she’d already been replaced. It wasn’t done spitefully, but she had lost the place she’d gotten too comfortable calling her own without paying her dues. Being a snarky, organic robot monster forged behind the Iron Curtain did not pay for fluffy happy dreams and it certainly did not pay for silver linings on dark clouds.

 

Natasha raised the scissors to her hair. The handle was irritatingly small and she should have just asked for the services of the Palace Hairdresser, but she had to cut it right then before she did something worse, like attack the ancient Wakandan ceremonial cloth displayed above her guest room’s bed in frustration.

 

‘Damn, that’s short,’ Natasha realised silently as the first chunk of auburn hair fell into the sink.

 

@>-`-,----

 

If taking a jog through an unfamiliar jungle in the middle of the night was a remotely sensible idea Steve would have opted to do that. Sadly, running around in the dark through the thick verdure that surrounded the Wakandan Royal Palace where leopards roamed around casually was not a rational choice. But he needed to get out, so he took the least extreme option and stepped out onto the upper balcony of the guest wing that overlooked a chic black gunite swimming pool on a terrace.

 

Steve thought he’d be relieved at the end of the day when he had planned his mission to rescue his pseudo family. He was. He was thankful that he had gotten to Wanda before they could do more damage to her psyche. It was horribly fortunate that they hadn’t really begun their mistreatment of Sam, Clint and Scott. The prison authorities had been using Wanda’s torture in front of their eyes to begin the breakdown process. The three men had to watch Wanda lose herself in her mind. There was no escaping it, with the sleep deprivation techniques the prison authorities had initiated. But Steve had finally got his ass out there and pulled them out of that hell-mouth in the middle of the ocean that they had the audacity to call ‘The Raft’.

 

Steve had thought that it would be good once they were free. He knew they were fugitives no longer welcome in their country and that his family had been wrongfully imprisoned, but it was supposed to be better. He was supposed to breathe easier knowing that they were able to get the help that they would need to heal. But it was the same thing that happened with Bucky. They were shell-shocked and distant. Steve knew they just needed some time to adjust and rest. He knew how to conduct himself when that was the case. He knew how to be there for them. But he didn’t count on two extra hurricanes of confusion joining his small group.

 

Sharon was… really gunning for him. Steve liked confident women who went after what they wanted, but Sharon was throwing herself into her pursuit with more enthusiasm than he could handle at the moment. He figured that it must have been the thrill of having just survived a week of life and death situations and going up against her own belief in powerful world players. That or it was darker: something attached to the aunt she was so fond of.

 

He shouldn’t have kissed her.

 

Steve did not understand why he had to go and be reasonable, and begin to entertain ‘feelings’ for Sharon Carter when he had been hurt by her years before. He still hadn’t forgiven her- not really. He had said that he had and that he understood but the truth was that he felt like some sort of action figurine toy that had been played with. They orchestrated his life for the purpose of making him their weapon on a leash again. He would have just preferred it if they had outright told him they knew he had issues to sort out and that he was obliged to help the country that had made him what he was defend its citizens again. He’d always squirmed at the scent of bad news, but once you had got a hold of Steve Rogers and made him face it he would be there to handle the worst of it. He’d get through it. God had made him that way before any scientist ever thought of including him in their experiments.

 

And then after years and years of not getting who he wanted, who he knew in his gut was the person he could have the most spectacular adventure of a life with, Sharon Carter who wasn’t even in the contending somehow became the only option for him. He’d been nudged, teased, encouraged even as he held out for what his soul said was right; and when he kissed Sharon Carter it was wrong.

 

He’d kissed her because he was tired of being alone. He’d kissed her because he selfishly hated going to his possible death with no trace of the kind of female contact he craved in his life, the contact he deprived himself of because although he knew very well what it was enjoy someone else physically what he needed was someone to trust that he could call his own- not a friend, but someone that belonged to him and to whom he belonged in return. He was a damned romantic. It was stupid to be one when you never once in your life believed you would live to be thirty. But he had physically lived more than three decades and his ID card stated that he was nearly a centenarian.

 

Sharon had eyes the same brown colour as Peggy’s, but they were a different shape. She was supportive and understanding too. It’s just that she was too supportive, and when she wasn’t he had no idea why she had lost patience with him. She was currently losing patience with him right then. She wanted to talk about them and the future of their relationship. And Steve needed a breath of fresh air. So he stepped out.

 

With the advantage of hindsight, Steve now knew that he and Peggy would have had problems no matter what. All relationships have their share of conflict, but Steve knew that it would have ruined them both if he could not give Peggy the freedom she needed. They had discovered love with each other, but it was 1945. He was the biggest celebrity in the Allied world. Peggy needed to work in the intelligence committee, because that is where she excelled. But how could the first Agent Carter be Agent Carter if she was also Mrs Rogers in the Post-World War Two world? You couldn’t be an intelligence agent and married to the most famous man in your world.

 

Peggy would have had to give it all up to follow him. She couldn’t have blazed a trail through the intelligence community and punched through all the glass ceilings that she did. If she chose Steve, she’d have had to stand at his side and take a step back when he was approached for a quote for the newspapers and radio. She’d have perfected a fake smile as she waited for him, her eyes would have glazed over to hide the resentment she felt towards him for making her love him in the unfair world they inhabited. His generation came home from the war and had babies. The jobs that women had held were given back to men and women were directed back into roles as housewives and mothers. The fire that Peggy had in her that had first attracted Steve to her, would have been caged and she’d have loved raising a family with him but some part of her would begin to fester. The wound of sacrifice would turn putrid. And Peggy would not have been the Peggy that she liked anymore.

 

Steve could never have done that to her. Peggy could not have done that to herself. They’d have ended it once their eyes had been cleared of the rosy fog that everything else that was not war and horror-related was tinted in. Peggy was always pragmatic, and Steve was always so considerate.

 

Steve had to fall through time to find the woman he wanted. He was half convinced someone down below had a vendetta against him because it still wasn’t easy. He had thought he had lost the battle, surrendered and then discovered that the war wasn’t over yet. But there was still a window of opportunity if he could just get through it.

 

He fucking loved Natasha Romanoff… _Natalia Romanova_.

 

He loved her and she would not have him and he could not understand why. Steve may have been awkward around women, but he understood human beings. He knew that Natasha felt as drawn to him as he did to her, but she insisted on stomping out any spark between them vehemently. She erected walls, she disappeared, she turned from hot to cold in nanoseconds, she threw herself into love for another man… But then she’d look at him sometimes and he felt her soul trying to reach out for his. She was so damn honest with him about things that no one else could have enticed him to discuss. She got him: she knew him in a way that went beyond all the analysis of an intelligence file, and she understood how he saw the world when very few were alive who still could.

 

Electricity charged the air between them.

 

But of course Natasha pulled out a lightning conductor and dispelled it all in favour of maintaining the status quo. And he respected her wishes, because there’s only so many times you can take a woman out only for her to ‘act like one of the boys’ purposely to keep you at arm’s length before you  get that tenacity is not helping your suit. Steve decided to be quietly tenacious.

 

It was just that there was the shadow of that other guy. There was the ‘fuck you’ expression on her face whenever someone mentioned him. And then there was the Winter Soldier. Stored in Siberia for so long, it was little wonder that Natalia Romanova had met James Barnes and James Barnes was amazing. Steve knew that. Girls did not flock to Bucky when they were young just because of his looks. Bucky was special, he had an emotional depth that sometimes made Steve feel like a cartoon character in comparison. Bucky could make a woman feel like the most beautiful creature in the world and the best thing was that he was absolutely sincere when he really fell for a dame. It didn’t happen often, but Steve had seen it and watching Bucky be in love and romance a woman was like going to the pictures to see an epic. And here Steve was in 2016 and he still couldn’t slow dance.

 

Natasha was there. Natasha was there in Wakanda and her energy was swirling around her like a vortex. Steve wanted to talk to her, and he was so tempted to go right in there and face the claws and teeth that would gouge him just so that he could get that hit of direct soul-to-soul contact from her. But Steve was a nice guy. He had Sharon waiting to talk to him. He had thought for a second that Natasha’s unshakeable loyalty had belonged to the authoritarian body that decided who was right in the world and not to him, but she proved Steve wrong and it was humbling and made him feel ashamed of his lack of faith in her. He had believed that because she wouldn’t give him her heart that she hadn’t trusted with him with what she did offer: her faith.

 

And now she was angry with him because he was an idiot. Natasha had penned him into what contemporary popular culture called ‘the friendzone’, and he hadn’t delivered on the premise of that relationship. He should have thought to seek her help in this rescue. This was her family too. Natasha and Clint had a connection that was so strong it may as well be interpreted as blood family. Natasha was so a part of Clint and Clint was so a part of her that she had known of his secret wife and children. Steve should have known that she’d given up everything she had rebuilt once again when she let him pass her as she stood to block his path to the Quinjet in Berlin. He should have used the damn rocks in his head.  

 

She was a refugee just like them and she was ticked off that she’d been forgotten. It made her surly with everyone. Wanda was asleep, so she missed it but Steve knew the young woman would be exempt from Natasha’s ire. Bucky was frozen and when Natasha had inspected the cryogenic chamber he occupied the kind of stillness in her face had made Steve worried that she may violently exact some kind of passionate revenge on his slumbering best friend brother. She glared at Clint whom she loved as a dear brother, and wouldn’t allow him to speak to her or seethed if the man even looked at her for more than ten seconds after she had completed her initial inspection of his person for injuries. Scott was terrified and blurted inappropriate things every time Natasha spoke to him. Sam was Sam and made the awkward situation worse in his dazed state by commenting on Natasha’s new haircut with the remark: “It kinda makes you look like Peter Pan.”

 

Even Steve knew that was not something you should say to a woman who had just cut her hair, but he blamed the meds that Sam had been given. Secretly Steve preferred her hair long, but he wouldn’t say it.

 

Natasha was polite to T’Challa though, as well as his wife Ororo, but that was probably because she had electrocuted the former while he was grieving for his late father.

 

She made necessary small talk with Sharon, and did not speak to Steve at all. But in truth, Steve hadn’t forgotten about Natasha. He had understood what it meant to Natasha to be on what she judged to be the right side and to have the overt backing of the global community in doing the terrible things she had to do to keep people safe. She knew what it was like to not have a say in your own fate, and Natasha had wanted to give the people of the world the assurance that they did have that right. She wanted them to know that she wasn’t a blood-thirsty vigilante. She had taken what she had been crafted to be and turned herself into someone who believed in her actions instead of drifting through life running on autopilot. Steve did not think Natasha would join them.  

 

But she did.

 

And now she was sitting down on the taupe tiled terrace below the balcony, dipping her feet in the dark waters of the gunite pool and staring at the reflective surface. Steve leaned against the glass balustrade of the balcony watching his dear friend. Her hair appeared redder, but it may have just been the darkness of the night. She wore a white cotton tank and shorts pyjamas set in accordance with the equatorial weather. Steve wore something similar: a white t-shirt and pale blue boxer shorts.

 

He knew she knew he was there, but he imagined she had decided that she preferred listening to the surrounding nocturnal wildlife than acknowledging him. That was okay by him. Steve knew he had to let her anger fizzle out a bit. Natasha did not get angry often, but when she was, she wouldn’t talk. It was probably a behaviour ingrained into her by the Red Room, but perhaps it was also something that was naturally Natasha’s own personality trait.

 

Steve turned his attention to listening to the jungle sounds in the air. If one got over the ‘What on earth was that?!’ factor, then it was actually very soothing. After all science had proven humanity originated from this continent- it was their home. Steve bent down and laid his head on his folded arms as he continued to lean on the balustrade. He closed his eyes and lost himself in the calls of hundreds of creatures, from crickets and frogs to the occasional leopard and gangs of hyenas.

 

But then the sound stopped. Steve’s eyes snapped open and he straightened up immediately. There was some kind of strange tension in the air. He expected birds to flee if there was something coming, but all was still. It was as though everything was paralysed in fear.

 

Then there it was. The horizon glowed like the dawn was imminent, but it was just past eleven o’clock at night. The glow grew brighter and finally Steve could see it: Fire on the horizon, coming from the North. But this was no bushfire. This reached as wide as he could see and travelled so fast it would get to them in seconds! The fire would be upon them in no time and Natasha down below couldn’t see what was coming over the treeline.

 

Steve’s head snapped down to find Natasha. She had stood up and was looking in the right direction, the direction that instinct was warning them and every other creature about. It was a snap decision to jump off the balcony. Steve’s mind had calculated this as his only option to follow just as the Wakandan Royal Palace klaxon sounded. Natasha’s head turned up alerted to his movement and Steve saw her eyes widen as he hurtled down towards her.

 

“Dive!” Steve was barely able to order her, but when he landed and grabbed her to roll into the pool waters Natasha flowed with his movement just as she always did.

 

They hit the dark cold water and it was like Steve’s life was ending once again. He was going to drown, but this time the last thing he saw was the huge fireball lighting up the surface world and the green eyes and red hair of the woman he should have made a greater effort to show that she was the centre of his world.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There we are: the beginning of a new story.


	2. Beyond Night

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes I look at my notes for this story and I just think ‘Why do you do this to yourself?!’ But we have to try our best at things that scare us a bit don’t we? And try not to procrastinate by watching reruns of ‘War and Peace’ even if James Norton is playing your favourite character in the book. 
> 
> I was really surprised that so many people read the first chapter, considering that I am still sort of new as a writer to this site (and considering that I haven’t listed any smut tags on this one, haha). But I hope that this chapter continues to capture your attention as the previous one did.

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Two

 

Beyond Night

 

His chest felt like it was going to explode with the desire to take a breath. Steve hadn’t fought with such ferocity against the heaviness in his muscles surrounding his ribcage and throat since that one time he almost died from an asthma attack when he was thirteen. The flicker of helpless panic in his core blazed up and licked at every corner of his mind. He wasn’t going to die. He was going to breathe!

 

Steve gasped a great lungful of air in, and immediately hacked acrid air out. He opened his eyes but couldn’t see more than shapeless blurs. He was on his stomach and the taste in his mouth was of soot. His ears rang with a high-pitched hum. His head throbbed and his everything else was racked with fissures of sharp pain. Steve wanted to spit the soot out but his mouth was so dry it felt like sandpaper scratching together when he moved his tongue around in exploration.

 

He could move his eyelids and tongue- that was good.

 

He could feel pain- that was good.

 

Steve only needed to will himself to move the tips of his fingers and toes and he would be able to eliminate sixty percent of the dread in his mind. He concentrated on sending his muscles the command to move and his whole body twitched jerkily. He might not have had the best control, but he still had functionality. He could get them out of there. _Them_ …

 

Steve rapidly blinked his eyes, trying to clear them of their crusty dry feeling and hoping that the blurry picture he was receiving would clear. The world looked like a bunch of grey blobs, but the grey blobs were starting to have more definite shapes. Slowly he recognised another colour: red. It was a few feet away from him, and Steve forced himself to bring the vibrant red object into focus. Slowly he recognised the scarlet thing was hair.

 

“Nat?” Steve croaked hoarsely. The action of speaking felt like a cat clawing the inside of his throat. “Nat?”

 

Steve lifted his head, even though it felt like his brain had been replaced with cement. His blurry vision had cleared enough for him to see that Natasha was lying crumpled next to him in the dust. Her skin was pale and grey-tinged. She was still. The dust near her face, her nose and mouth, was still.

 

“Nat?” Steve called again more sternly. He waited two seconds before he followed his instinct and fought through the grating pain of making his body move and scrambled towards the redheaded woman. “Nat, wake up.”

 

Steve hated his trembling fingers for taking so long to check her pulse. He couldn’t feel a damn thing out of them. He knew it was him and not her. It couldn’t be her. His stupid fingers shook so bad and his fuzzy mind couldn’t distinguish any other sensation other than the agony caused by movement. It was not Natasha’s heart not beating.

 

So Steve did what he would ordinarily do if there was pulse and someone was not breathing. He clambered to his knees and rolled Natasha onto her back. He checked her airways and lowered his mouth to her softly parted lips and blew air in for her. Her chest rose with the action, but it was just Steve’s delivered air filling her lungs. He started compressions, counting in his head.

 

“Natasha, wake up,” Steve instructed as he finished his set of chest compressions and lowered his mouth to hers again.

 

“Natasha, wake the fuck up,” Steve growled.

 

“Wake up,” He hissed.

 

“Breathe, Natasha,” Steve pleaded in a whisper as he started his fifth set of compressions. Steve blew air into her lungs once more as his eyesight became blurry again, this time due to wetness.

 

Natasha spluttered awake. She jerked up and scratched at Steve’s face, grabbed a hold of his neck and screeched at him as she bit his shoulder and punched him solidly in the side.

 

“It’s me, Nat,” Steve assured her as he recovered from the reactionary wince to her deft strike. He gathered her in his arms to still her and murmured into her ear: “It’s me Steve. You’re okay. You’re okay.”

 

“Steve?” Natasha rasped. Steve felt a small hand grip onto his back and he pulled away from Natasha so she could see his face if she was able. Natasha shook, breathing hard as she squinted at him. Steve could see that she struggled to control her eyes, but their vivid green latched onto his gaze. “What happened?”

 

“I don’t know,” Steve answered. “Fireball. No, the whole horizon was on fire.”

 

“No, you’re covered in soot,” Natasha pointed out. “We were in water. It got hot.”

 

“You can say that again,” Steve huffed in a half-laugh. It had been like they were live lobsters chucked into a pot, and now they were… dry? Had the water evaporated? His body hurt, but Natasha’s face was pale and not red and burned. Steve was starting to regain some sensory perception that extended beyond measuring pain and Natasha felt cold in his arms, cold enough that he had started to absently rub her muscles in an effort to warm them.

 

Steve then started taking in the details of the scene: Natasha was no longer in her short white pyjamas set. She was wearing what looked like her Black Widow catsuit uniform. He definitely wasn’t wearing a t-shirt and boxers. Steve was in a Captain America uniform- a dark blue one that was covered in ash. They were sitting in a shallow crater of ash, broken tar, cement and metal rubble. There was a twisted, collapsed traffic light four feet away to his right. Natasha’s face was the face that he knew, but her hair which had been as short as his a few minutes ago was now tied up into a long braid. Wisps of red curls framed her face with a soft side swept fringe.

 

“Your hair is long,” Steve stated.

 

“There’s a skyscraper behind you,” Natasha noted emotionlessly.

 

Steve’s head jerked up from looking down at Natasha who was cradled in his lap and examined his wider surroundings. They were in a concrete jungle instead of the Wakandan jungle. A crumpled up yellow taxi-cab’s licence plate told him they were in New York, New York.

 

Natasha grabbed hold of Steve’s shoulder and pulled herself up to look around. There were skyscrapers, but they had hunks of their structure missing. Most looked like the ragged broken teeth of an old herbivore, worn down almost to their roots. Windows were shattered and only jagged pieces of glass lining the frames remained resembling rows of shark maws like some kind of industrial monster. Teeth within teeth within the wide mouth of a surfacing predator; the landscape had devoured all signs of life and was now barren.

 

“That’s our Shawarma place,” Natasha gestured with a nod over Steve’s shoulder. Steve twisted around to verify the fact, but the pink and green sign for the fro-yo place that Sam liked which Steve had been looking at had pretty much confirmed that they were in Manhattan. Natasha was right. It was the Shawarma store that they frequented. Tony had once been obsessed with trying to buy the place, but the owner refused to sell no matter the size of the offer that Tony came up with. They were in Manhattan, about half an hour’s jog from the Avenger’s Tower.

 

“Nat, tell me again the last thing you remember?” Steve requested cautiously as a theory started to form in his head. He looked up at the sky above. It was overcast, but the clouds were not about to bring any precipitation. They could have been the consequence of a great deal of smoke and dust being churned up into the atmosphere.

 

“I was dipping my feet in the pool on the terrace of King T’Challa’s palace. It was night. I was listening to the noise of the jungle and ignoring you on the balcony” – here Steve wanted to snort at Natasha’s blunt honesty but suppressed the urge- “when it got really quiet all of a sudden. There was absolutely no animal noise. Then the palace sirens went off and you jumped from the balcony yelling at me, and then pulled me into the swimming pool just as I saw this wall of fire coming at us. I thought we were going to drown, but then it got hot.”

 

“That’s basically what I remember, except of course from my viewpoint,” Steve told her. “But your hair’s long. You had just cut your hair.”

 

“Are you thinking we have some sort of memory lapse?” Natasha queried.

 

“Yeah, I am,” Steve confirmed. Natasha nodded at him slowly.

 

“And now we’re sitting in the rubble of a deserted city,” Natasha observed. “Call me paranoid, but I don’t exactly feel too safe out here.”

 

“Neither do I,” Steve admitted. He had lowered his voice once he had become conscious of their surroundings. It looked as though the city had been turned into a warzone. Not even during their worst crises as the Avengers had New York City taken this much damage. “Can you walk? We need to get to cover.”

 

Natasha answered him by extracting herself from his grasp and staggering to stand. She felt for her utility belt as she scanned the surrounding ruins for possible enemy threats. Steve got up and cast his eyes over their immediate environment. There was a light machine gun with S.H.I.E.L.D. branding emblazoned on it near where he had regained consciousness. Two of Natasha’s specially designed pistols- gifts from Tony- were at his feet. He picked them up, checked them over and handed them to Natasha before he picked up the machine gun and scrounged for a moment to find a belt of ammunition.

 

Natasha led the way as they slinked towards the cover of one of the less damaged buildings. They entered a popular gym’s lobby and took cover behind the reception counter. Natasha peered out while Steve checked what weaponry he had on his person besides the machine gun he had picked up. He was down to a dagger at his hip and a blade in his boot. He glanced over Natasha and he could see that a few of the pockets on her utility belt were empty. She was out of explosives, but she still had her poisons. She probably still had knives too. She’d definitely be okay because her Widow’s bracelets were on her wrists.

 

Her uniform was strange though. From what Steve could tell, the black fabric had vibranium woven into it. It wasn’t obvious, but if you were familiar with vibranium blends like Steve was you could tell by looking at the weft and warp. The texture was just different. Steve was glad that this future Natasha had finally gotten approved for a vibranium-enhanced uniform. It worried him to no end that she did not even wear Kevlar regularly when she went out into the field. Did it really matter whether she could unzip her catsuit to distract opponents with a bit of cleavage (even if it was gloriously creamy, curved cleavage) at the expense of losing body armour? He’d heard her grumble about it enough times to know that she had been waiting on the new design for her suit that would give her the seductive shape she sometimes needed and the necessary protection for her vital organs.

 

Perhaps all of that meant that the world had needed them again, and they had been called out of hiding. Or perhaps someone had seen sense and they’d been acquitted of the charges against them.

 

“Steve, the newsstand in front of us,” Natasha indicated. Steve joined Natasha in peering over the counter and focused on the newspaper and magazine vendor stall directly in front of the gym they were taking cover in.  

 

Steve frowned as his eye zoomed in on the printed text of the newspapers.

 

“Sunday, the eighth of May two thousand and sixteen,” Steve read out aloud. “That’s the same date as the last day we remember. Maybe that’s coincidence? Maybe they’re just old stock.”

 

“Old from when?” Natasha scoffed. “Yesterday? You and I both know that old stock is sent to the recycling plant after closing.”

 

Steve turned to look at Natasha and stared at her profile for a long tense moment. She would not meet his gaze and instead kept her eyes focused ahead, constantly scanning the other buildings.

 

Steve inhaled deeply and noticed that his sense of smell was returning. He could smell Natasha’s perfume, which was odd. She never wore perfume on missions unless the directive was to seduce. But the scent was not one of her seduction fragrances. The smell was the same as that perfume she had on her dressing table but never wore, at least not around him. He knew she used it because the contents of the bottle disappeared slowly over time. Steve only knew what it smelled like because he’d been curious one day when she was out on a solo-mission. The scent was special. It warm and had notes of amber, spice and exotic flowers, but despite the ingredients the perfume wasn’t overpowering at all.

 

This tiny factor created a huge juxtaposition. Ordinarily Natasha used safari soap to remove as much of her scent as possible when she was on a mission. Perhaps this future Natasha had some kind of event that had been interrupted by the disaster that had befallen the city. But this Natasha was not from the future according to the newspapers on the stand just outside the store. It was too much to try to figure out when they did not know what they were up against, so Steve ignored his bewildered thoughts on the matter in favour of following his training so they could survive.

 

Steve reached up to his ear for his communications earpiece and found that it was missing. It had probably fallen out during whatever had happened to them before they regained consciousness.

 

“Do you still have your earpiece?” Steve asked Natasha. She shook her head in the negative. “Then we need radios.”

 

“Check the security guards’ office or maybe the first-aid kit,” Natasha offered. They were in a gym and the emergency kits were well-stocked.

 

“Got one here,” Steve told her as his rummage through the contents of the cabinets under the reception counter bore fruit. He pulled out a radio device and set it next to Natasha before pulling out a second one. He switched it on and tuned it through various frequencies. White noise was the only thing Steve could get out of it. The city’s emergency channel was inoperative. The Avengers’ emergency channel was inoperative. Something was very wrong.

 

“Leave it,” Natasha instructed. “Let’s head to the Avengers’ Tower. There’re reserve generators and we can access data and find out what happened.” 

 

Steve agreed with a nod and the pair made their way as quickly, quietly and secretively as they could to the tall skyscraper that had been their part-time home in the city. They were three blocks away when they were able to get a good look at the state of the building. A fifth of the building’s side was missing, and it looked as though some large object had crashed against it.

 

“Do you think it’s stable?” Steve consulted Natasha.

 

“Sufficiently so, but I wouldn’t go in the basement,” the redhead replied. “I think we should stick to the emergency stairwell on the side of the building if we have to go above ground level.”

 

“Why are you saying that like you know we have to climb hundreds of stairs?” Steve griped.

 

“Because we probably do,” Natasha deduced. “Look, the lights are off. The Towers’ emergency lights are set to turn on when the power goes out regardless of whether it is day or night or whether there were individual lights switched on or off.”

 

“So if we want to access any information and power we need to get to one of the safe rooms that have their own power. We can either go down into that basement control room, the one in the middle of the building, or the one on the penthouse living quarters’ level,” Steve assessed.

 

“I’m not getting trapped in a cement box when a whole huge building could bury us,” Natasha told Steve firmly. “No basement. I’d rather be able to cast a zip line to another building or jump if we need to get out. Let’s try for the mid-level control room.”

 

They entered the building at a jog and quickly made their way to the emergency stairwell. Their path was clear as they fought against their tired muscles and climbed their way up to the fifty second floor. When they got there, they discovered a Quinjet had crashed into that level and had stopped halfway into the rubble of the safe room. They had to climb even further.

 

Between the eighth and sixteenth step separating level seventy three and seventy four, Natasha suddenly halted behind Steve. Glad of the moment’s reprieve because the fire in his glutes and thighs was _killing_ him, Steve turned around to ask Natasha what was wrong.  

 

“What is it?” Steve enquired with concern.

 

“I…” Natasha hesitated as her face screwed up in concentration. “The pain is subsiding and I’m beginning to feel other things. I just realised that it’s likely that I’ve been penetrated recently- vaginally I mean.”

 

“What?” Steve blurted dumbly. “Are you oka-”

 

Natasha cut him off with the prompt unzipping and peeling down of her catsuit.

 

“Nat, what the hell?” Steve exclaimed as he spun around to face away from her. Then he realised how insensitive he sounded. “No, I don’t mean that. You just surprised me… um are you… What must I do?”

 

“Fucking hell,” Natasha whispered, making Steve spin around again only to catch a flash of her half-squatting with her uniform around her thighs and her panties lowered. He scolded himself for his ability to instantly take in the details of her lilac and black sheer lace bra.

 

“Nat?” Steve called softly, worry bleeding into his voice.

 

“No, this is consensual, I think,” Natasha assured him. Steve’s mind wandered for a moment to the deranged training regime of the Red Room that allowed Natasha to be able to make that differentiation with so much conviction in her tone. She gasped and Steve was on tenterhooks again.

 

“What? What is it?” Steve asked urgently. He turned his head, but kept his torso still as he looked over his shoulder. He could see the top of Natasha’s curly haired braid, but nothing his manners would have chastised him for witnessing.

 

“You can turn around,” Natasha told him in a dazed and distant voice. “I’ve got panties on…”

 

Steve’s etiquette and genuine concern warred within him for a few seconds before his need to check on Natasha won out. She was standing with her catsuit pulled up to her hips, with her panties still showing- they matched the bra, but Steve reminded himself that was a superfluous fact- and her fingers clasped around a set of tiny objects on the end of a chain necklace. The necklace looked like the one that Clint had given her, that she always wore, but was a few inches longer. It had the familiar arrow on it and… two rings. One had a diamond on it and the other was slightly simpler. Both were rose gold. Steve’s stomach dropped at the sight of them.

 

“Twenty sixth of April, two thousand and fourteen,” Natasha murmured as she squinted to read the inscription on the inside of the simpler rose gold band. “Steven and Natalia.”

 

The date was just over a month after the fall of S.H.I.E.L.D. Those were Steve and Natasha’s real full first names.

 

Natasha’s green eyes flicked up to Steve’s. His eyes had widened as he comprehended the significance of the words she had just said and Steve automatically took a step down towards her, reaching for her with his right hand. Natasha lifted the ring on her chain up, and twisted it round for him to see the elegantly engraved date and names.  

 

“There’s something on the other ring too,” Natasha said measuredly. She hadn’t referred to the diamond ring as an engagement ring, when it was obvious what it was. She inhaled steadily, took the diamond ring between her fingers and read the tiny script. “The love we share is like the phosphenes that beautify the dark. When there is no light, our love still remains.”

 

Steve needed to breathe again, except this time around he had to remember how the mechanics of it worked instead of just trying to escape the force that suppressed his lungs. Natasha’s eyes had returned to his and he could not pull away from her gaze. He would have deduced that he was asleep and dreaming or in a coma and dreaming, but he would have never pinned what he was experiencing as an actual possibility in his reality.

 

The urge to find out if the facts that he was confronted with were true bubbled up until it overflowed into him ripping the glove off of his left hand to find his ring finger bare. That did not stop his search because next Steve tackled the zips and fastenings at the neck of his suit. He managed to fumblingly free an inch and through that parting Steve was able to seize a thin metal chain by hooking it with his index finger. He tugged the chain out from under his uniform to reveal that it was silver as well and had a pendant of Saint Stephen, his patron saint that he shared a name with, and a pendant of Saint Veronica, the patron saint of compassion who had wiped Christ’s brow of his blood on his way to his crucifixion, as well as a thick rose gold ring that matched the one on Natasha’s necklace.

 

Somehow, it appeared as if Steve was married to Natasha.

 

A loud ominous groan from the building cut their incredulous stupor short. Even if the Avengers’ Tower was built to withstand disaster, it still was not a good idea to loiter longer than necessary in the damaged building.

 

“Data,” Natasha prompted.

 

“Yes,” Steve agreed with a whisper. He waited for her, staring at his ring and the same date and names engraved on the inside of the band  as the ones on Natasha’s ring, while she shrugged her sleeves back on and tucked their cuffs under her Widow’s bracelets. Natasha fluidly zipped up her catsuit and Steve tucked away his necklace.

 

They continued up the stairwell, more aware of each other than they normally were- which had already been a great amount, as evidenced by how in tune they were with each other as a team. Both silently grappled with the knowledge that they were apparently not just a pair, but a couple.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A bit shorter than the first chapter, but it felt like the chapter had to end here. The previous chapter felt like it was all about flow for me, and this one was more staccato- I just hope it wasn’t too staccato. Next chapter’s probably going to be more about Nat’s perspective.


	3. Articles from a Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This came out differently than I thought it would, but I don’t mind that it did. I hope that you guys enjoy reading it.

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Three

 

Articles from a Life

 

“Well, this day is determined not to get any better,” Natasha remarked drolly.

 

She and Steve were standing staring at the wreckage of the safe room in the penthouse apartments section of the Avengers’ Tower. The room was located on the communal living level that was below all the personal suites. It had been next to the kitchen. It had become a mess of steel, concrete and wires.

 

Steve’s head snapped towards her, no doubt the expression on his face displaying some sort of offence at the implication that Natasha did not think it was happy news that they were apparently married in whatever this was. They did not have time for that. Natasha did not have time to put on figurative kid gloves to handle sentiment. The once glamorous vista of Manhattan, which surrounded the Tower, was now the perfect backdrop for a post-apocalyptic movie. The sun was setting and the light bleeding through the ashy cloud cover tinged everything in a faint red. 

 

“That’s how it’s supposed to look if someone hit the self-destruct,” Natasha pointed out. She instantly knew that it had been an unwise thing to say to her companion and grabbed Steve’s shoulder as he rushed towards the unstable mess. He would try to look for signs of bodies in that. But there was a two minute window for escape once the self-destruct sequence programming had been initiated. “We’d both have smelled blood if there was anyone in there.”

 

“The wind,” Steve countered with a sweeping gesture of his arm. The large bank of windows had been shattered and the lively breeze was whipping in.

 

“We’d still have smelled the blood,” Natasha insisted through clenched teeth. She could smell scorched metal and plastic. There was no tell-tale rot of blood and flesh that would have started to set in. They’d taken ages to climb the stairs in their sorry state and would have heard the explosion in the barren silence engulfing the city if the self-destruct had taken place recently. If there were human remains, they would have been able to distinguish the odour from all the other scents. “Now let’s find weapons. We don’t know what we’re dealing with and until we do it’s best to stock up.”

 

Natasha began searching through the designated weapons caches on the level, while Steve glared at her for a moment. He adjusted the sash of his light machine gun on his shoulder and grudgingly began to help.

 

“It looks like whoever set the self-destruct, cleared the place of weapons too,” Natasha concluded when after a minute of thorough searching, they had found nothing useful for defending themselves in a fight other than Tony’s pretty Japanese mokume gane kitchen knives. She turned to face Steve but did so a little too quickly and thwacked herself in the mouth with her hair braid. It had been a long while since she’d had very long hair, and she pushed her embarrassment aside to insouciantly appear as if nothing had happened. Steve hadn’t seen it anyway.

 

“My apartment,” Natasha suggested. She smirked and continued: “I always have weapons.”

 

“I know,” Steve mumbled.

 

“I am-” Natasha began smugly before she was cut off.

 

“- a weapon,” Steve finished off as he followed her out and up the emergency stairwell two floors up.

 

It occurred to Natasha as they were traversing up more damn stairs that her knowledge of the world might once again be different to the reality they would be confronted with. After the events in Sokovia, she had moved to the secret Avengers Facility Base outside the city along with Steve, but they had kept apartments in the Tower for when they needed to stay in the city. The little home she made for herself had stayed pretty much the same, but as she drew closer to her designated level Natasha felt a ball of anxiety whorl into the pit of her stomach.

 

When Natasha pushed open the stairwell’s door, she was relieved to find that her memory corresponded correctly. She was greeted with the sight of the familiar small ante-room leading to her apartment’s entrance door. The console table opposite the elevator had a vase of white chrysanthemums and she always had a vase of white chrysanthemums out on her console table. They lasted ages, so she did not have to worry about them dying. Coming back to wilted flowers made her all too aware of the chunks of time that passed her by while she was out not living a ‘normal’ life.

 

Natasha pushed through the door, and found more of the familiar. Her kitchen was the same. All the surfaces were gleaming white and there was the usual bowl of tropical fruit on the counter. Fresh pineapples and mangoes still felt like a luxury to her, even if she had teased Steve for his fascination with the fruits that were now readily available in any decent grocery store in the country and at any time of year.    

 

Her cloakroom was the same, which meant it had guns behind a panel that flipped around. She handed Steve, who had followed her in and closed the door quietly behind them, another light machine gun, two handguns and ammunition for both.

 

Her dining room was the same, which meant there were daggers in a secret drawer in the table top of her dining table. Her sitting room was the same, which meant that… There was a blue, red and white crochet throw draped over her pale grey minimalist leather sofa. The wool blanket had been made by a WWII veteran who had been in the Women’s Army Corps. Natasha had been there when the bright-eyed ninety year old great-grandmother had presented the gift to Steve at a Memorial Day event.

 

And then of course there was a damn fucking huge black and white photo canvas print of her and Steve in wedding attire on her wall.

 

Natasha did not do photos in her personal abode. Yes, she had them, but they were secreted away in clandestine hiding spots and one would have to be absolutely brilliant at lateral thinking and puzzle-solving to find out where they were stored. But there was a photo of her in a wedding dress holding a peony and gardenia bouquet with Steve in a tux embracing her as they laughed together, and that photo was hanging on the wall of her sitting room like it was art.

 

And that ugly little clay statue of goodness knows what-she certainly couldn’t figure it out- that Steve loved and would not part with was on her credenza.

 

And there was a very large grey hoodie draped over the back of her chaise longue by the cracked glass sliding doors leading out onto her balcony.

 

And there sprawled on the coffee table was that googly-eyed fluffy spider key ring that she won for Steve when she beat him at the strongman game that one time she dragged him out of the office back in Washington so they could go to a funfair in neighbouring Maryland because he looked so lonely.

 

Her coffee table had been glass. The coffee table in front of her sofa had curved lines, had an oak top and was a design-find from a vintage furniture store in the Meatpacking District that Steve had sent her twenty three different photos of from all angles as he agonised over whether he should buy it just two months ago. Two months ago in her memory, that is. She’d shown up to haggle with the storeowner on Steve’s behalf because what the guy was charging was not market-value but Captain-America-wants-to-buy-this-from-me-value.     

 

“More guns,” Natasha muttered and stomped off towards her bedroom. She kept her head down and her eyes on the floor in fear of more instances of integrated décor and telling photographs. It wasn’t the wisest thing to do in their situation where they were obviously in trouble and had no idea of what the threat was or where the enemy currently was for that matter, but she didn’t think she could handle any more images of a life she did not know and frankly did not believe was possible. A life like in that photo canvas print would be too painful to imagine, never mind actually living it.

 

“I’ll get the cache in the study,” Steve mumbled. His voice was quiet but she heard him. There were no other voices but the wind sighing through the cracked balcony sliding doors to listen to.

 

Natasha inhaled a calming breath and entered her bedroom. Their bedroom? Her bedroom. Greys, blues, browns and _prints_ had imposed on the sanctity of her pristine cream and white silks, faux furs and flocked velvet. She ignored them and headed straight for the drawer secreted in the mattress base of her bed. She knelt as she pulled it out, and tried not to hyperventilate as she realised that Steve’s scent was there, mingled with her own. Hyperventilating would only make her more aware of the scent as her lungs took it in. It would coat her nasal passages and she’d be able to taste it on her tongue.

 

Natasha concentrated on strapping holsters onto her thighs, where handguns would rest until she needed them. She checked the magazines of her weapons. She tucked ammunition, explosives and poison into her utility belt. It was too quiet. Natasha paused and listened alertly.

 

“Steve?” Natasha called. He didn’t respond. There had been no sounds that would denote a scuffle of any scale. If there was someone else in the apartment then she’d have to get the drop on them. She needed a ruse to mislead them on her whereabouts. “Steve, I’m just going to the bathroom quickly.”

 

She got up and walked over to her en suite and closed the door behind her. She tried the taps, but there was no running water. She did not have time to wonder about what had happened to the hot water heater that should have fed her taps even if the cold water supply had been cut off. Settling for the lack of audio masking, Natasha silently got on top of her closed toilet and removed an access panel from the ceiling. She found a good grip on the edge of the square hole and agilely curled up into the duct-ways above her apartment.

 

The redhead slithered through the dark, metal tunnels and stopped above the access point for her study. She carefully, slowly, quietly moved the ceiling panel back a fraction so she could get a glimpse of what she was dealing with. Steve was on his knees facing the window. She could only see the back of him, but she could tell that his eyes were focused ahead. His posture looked… defeated. That meant that whoever held him captive was either a devastating surprise or held something important as leverage over Steve that he could not bear to lose.

 

Natasha ran through the list of suspects in her mind. She hoped to fuck it wasn’t the Winter Soldier. If they were inexplicably in New York and had been in Wakanda then it was possible that he was there too. He’d volunteered to be put into cryogenic slumber because he didn’t trust that his mind wasn’t riddled with triggers that would end his best friend. Natasha knew how that felt, but she’d still shoot him if he threatened Steve’s life. She hoped it wasn’t the Winter Soldier possessing the body of James Barnes because he’d know she was there. The Winter Soldier would hear her release the safety on her handgun, even though S.H.I.E.L.D. had spent years and millions of dollars designing an ‘as quiet as possible’ safety mechanism for their espionage agents’ firearms. She’d be dead before she had the ceiling panel open. But she had to try.

 

Natasha inhaled what might have been her last breath steadily. She braced herself with her legs against the metal walls she was surrounded by. Simultaneously she released the safety on her gun, slid the ceiling panel away from her and dropped her upper torso into the room below to take aim at the assailant holding Steve hostage as she hung upside down.

 

It was not what she expected.

 

She almost fell out of the duct-ways she was so surprised. Only her cat-like reflexes ingrained into her from childhood had saved her from cracking her skull on the floor behind Steve. Instead she twisted in the air and landed on her feet, right way up and staring wide-eyed at the scene in front of her.

 

There was a crib in her study.

 

There was a white crib with a grey stuffed toy wolf in it in her study. The walls were covered in a silver and white mural of a woodland scene. Depicted among the trees were deer and birds, and Natasha recognised that the style of the lines poignantly portraying their forms was characteristic of Steve’s sketches. There was a tiny blue denim converse sneaker on the seat of a grey upholstered rocking chair on the right and on the other side of the room a sippy cup in the shape of a panda stood on the white chest of drawers. The waist-high piece of furniture had brass metal handles carved into the forms of sleeping critters such as foxes, rabbits and mice. Next to it was a bookcase filled with toys, books and occupied photo frames.  

 

Above the chest of drawers a collection of pale green wooden letters hung on the wall. They spelled ‘James.’

 

Natasha felt herself starting to tremble again. Earlier it had been from the stinging throbbing pain she felt after regaining consciousness, and then after that it had been from the intensity of her exhaustion as her muscles struggled through climbing the flights of stairs between the sixty seventh and seventy first floors. But this new quiver was from rage.

 

“Get the fuck out of my head!” Natasha screamed viciously. Her outburst knocked Steve over in surprise and he finally unglued his eyes from the surreal setting he had stumbled into. He finally looked at her with those eyes that had the same long eyelashes that the little redheaded baby boy in all the photographs had. But Natasha refused to see him.

 

There was only one explanation for the load of bullshit she was confronted with: Someone was in her head. Someone who had abilities like Wanda had seeped into her mind and was playing a torturous game with the memories they found there to create this hell of a heaven Natasha was immersed in. Someone preyed on the stupid half-emotions and yet to be crystallised desires that she’d swept under the rug of real duties and her knack for predicting the outcome of any theoretical situation.

 

“Get out of my head!” Natasha shrieked. The hysteria in her voice was sure to ravage her throat. “GET OUT!”

 

Steve stared at Natasha dumbly as she yanked at the roots of her tied up hair. She felt nauseated and was sure that she’d have already started retching if her self-control wasn’t so resolute. Natasha groaned in frustration as her mind jumped to the supposition that they’d make the Steve in her head do something that was Red Room worthy. They’d make him an insidious foe in the guise of a lover. They already made him her only friend in this dystopian landscape. He’d get under her skin- hell, they’d already made her conclude that he had gotten so deep inside of her he had established access past her walls and subterfuges. All they had to do was conjure up the sensation of a small dribble of remnant jizz drawn out from inside her by gravity dripping onto her panties and an ache more pleasant than the stabbing jolts she felt every time she took a step. They planted the seeds for the concept of a romantic fantasy that fed into Natasha’s internal acknowledgement of the chemistry between her and the earnest, endearing, impish Steve Rogers; and the Steve in her head played along with and mirrored her numb reaction.

 

The thing they sculpted into a ‘Steve’ bundled her up into his arms, even though she clawed at him, struggled and twisted to get away.

 

“If they’re in your head, they’re in my head too,” Steve whispered soothingly into her hair. “I’m here. You’re not alone.”

 

“That’s what they’d make you say,” Natasha spat. That S.H.I.E.L.D. handgun’s safety release sure was quiet, but it wasn’t quiet enough for Steve not to hear it when the muzzle of Natasha’s gun rested against the soft underside of his jaw. “I will kill you. I know you’re not him. Your hair is too blond and I know him too well. You act exactly like he would, but you’re not him.”

 

Slowly anger swirled into the eyes of the man looking down at her while they both panted from exertion. She was still surrounded by his embrace. His arms were gentle but his hands held on tightly. He wouldn’t let go, his eyes told her that. The blue eyes that had been coloured purple by the red glow of the bloody sunset invading their environs filled up with indignation and Natasha knew she was right: They’d make him like the Red Room’s never ending tests and torture.

 

“What the fuck is so implausible about you and I being together, Natasha?!” Steve yelled at her. Natasha blinked forcefully. That certainly wasn’t what she expected him to say. Was this the words of the mind-meddler using the voice of Steve to trick her into submission? The _real_ Steve would have had niggling thoughts of getting back to blonde hair, brown doe eyes and long svelte legs to distract him all along. He’d fidget with impatience but try to hide it. His eyes would be sad and his smiles forlorn now that he’d dedicated his heart to someone he couldn’t reach once more.  

 

“I have just as little grasp of what’s going on as you do. This is happening to me too!” Steve ranted. “Now you can continue to attack me or we can figure this crap out. You know that some messed up science shit can happen- your and my existence is evidence of that- so buck up and deal. This is not someone in our heads. We know what that feels like. You have the training to deal with that. Soviet experimentation with psychic warfare wasn’t just a ruse. You’re prepared for that. You’ve been tested in the field for that. Wanda was a fluke but Loki showed your real strength.

 

“Now it looks to me that we’ve got another person depending on us. All of this is evidence: evidence of existence, evidence that’s going to give us clues on where to find him. We need to find him because I don’t want to believe that you and I are the only people left in the aftermath of whatever created this desolate wasteland. We need to find him, Natasha, because somehow we’ve created something I never even thought I’d get the chance to say I did not deserve.

 

“Now you either shoot me right now or we figure this out and get him back. If there’re no people in the city, then he had to have been evacuated with them. Decide. Now!”

 

Natasha hated crying, but Steve’s facial expressions just had a way of getting to her. His voice had a way of getting to her. His presence made her think it was safe to let go, but she knew what lay down that path and she’d be damned if she went there. The two and a half tears that escaped her eyes would be ignored. She sagged and lowered her gun.

 

“I should do better than this,” Natasha murmured as she rested her forehead against Steve’s chest. “Still, I don’t want to believe you because I’m smarter than this.” She raised her hand and gestured a loop indicating their surroundings.

 

“You can take that as you will,” Natasha suggested as she raised her face up to look at Steve, her chin still on his chest. “I don’t know what we did to make that kid, because you know it’s impossible for me- you know it’s impossible, Steven- but he will be an orphan. Why did we do that to him? I know what I am. I wouldn’t do that.” 

 

“I’m real,” Steve stated quietly. “I’m here right now. I’m with you. You don’t want to believe me but you know it’s real. Today’s just been hard” – Natasha snorted at his summation- “I already almost lost you earlier. We may be currently perplexed, but we’ll figure it out. We’re a team. We’re partners. We’re friends at least. We have each other’s backs, right?”

 

“And I’m not hysterical,” Natasha declared. It was embarrassing to speak the words but she needed to say the reminder aloud. “We’ve got this. I’ve got this. We deal with what we have in front of us and do our best to get more so we can make better decisions.”

 

“Better decisions,” Steve repeatedly softly. He gently caressed the back of his gloved hand down her cheek, settling his gaze on her lips. Even when the saturating light made his water blue eyes appear mauve they were still mesmerising. A still, centred heat spread through Natasha’s body, replacing the ravenous, sharp, lashing flames of her fury. How difficult it was for her to ignore the blatant knowledge that her soul was hungry when that fact could trump everything else and tempt her into foolishness. Natasha turned her head away and braced her hands against Steve’s ribcage to push away from him. Whoever this Steve was, she was still going to keep him at arm’s length.

 

‘ _Friends at least_ ’, but not lovers. She couldn’t do that to him.

 

“We have to figure out where the authorities would have evacuated everyone to. We need to estimate the scale of disaster we’re looking at,” Steve continued professionally after clearing his throat.  

 

“We still need information. Perhaps if we went to Tony’s Long Island estate we could find something,” Natasha mused. She holstered her handgun, and trailed her fingertips up her hip slowly as she thought. “No matter what we might remember of our last interactions with Stark, we know that he records everything that happens to the Avengers and always has data back-ups. We can find out what we’re up against and what went so wrong that we landed up here as we are.”

 

“We’ll have to try to get a vehicle from the basement to work,” Steve surmised. “It would be quicker to fly, but seeing as there’re three helicopter crashes that I can see from this window I think it would be safer to be on the ground than risk an aviation misadventure. Something could be affecting machinery- the same something that took out the building’s emergency power generators.”

 

“I so don’t want to go into the basement,” Natasha sighed.

 

“Well, we have the gear to rappel down the side of the building waiting hidden in your pantry,” Steve reminded her with a winsome crooked smile. “So no more stairs, at least. After we try Tony’s we…”

 

Steve trailed off into silence as he focused on something behind Natasha.

 

“What is it?” Natasha demanded as she twisted around to see what Steve was looking at. All there was to see was a side table next to the rocking chair. On it was a lamp and under the lamp shade there was a silver framed photograph of the redhead baby, a long-haired Natasha and Steve all sitting on the steps of the front porch of a redbrick house. There was green shrubbery lining the stairway, black wrought iron balustrading and a post box with the name ‘Rogers’ on it.

 

“I know that house,” Steve stated. “I was going to put an offer in on it, but then we had had to leave for Lagos. I didn’t get a chance to follow up on it before Peggy passed and then… everything.”

 

“If it’s… _our_ house then there’ll probably be a safe room, power and access to satellites,” Natasha theorised. “We would make sure of it.”

 

“We would,” Steve agreed.

 

“Let’s go then,” Natasha decided. It would mean more things that she didn’t remember seeing in the same space or existing, but it was better to get a clearer grasp of the situation as soon as they could.

 

She slipped a photograph of the redheaded baby out of its frame and into an inner pocket of her catsuit before she left.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Natasha’s allowed to freak out sometimes. She’s still human. She’s had a bad week. Also, y'know how blunt she can be.


	4. Whimsy Swamps

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I took so long getting this out. I did start with this almost immediately after posting the last chapter, but I kind of burnt out due to a whole load of RL stress. I normally would have channelled it into writing, but I was just overwhelmed. I’m actually still dealing with the stress and I’m half-convinced certain people just want to turn all my hair grey so I have to spend loads on hair dye. 
> 
> But hopefully this chapter is okay. I know that those of you following the story are eager to find out what is happening and I’m eager to exorcise this demon-plot-bunny properly.

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Four

 

Whimsy Swamps 

 

Pushing a jeep up the small incline of the ramp leading to the surface from the underground basement parking of the Avengers’ Tower was a much more sensible use of super-soldier strength than attempting to use your body as a link between a helicopter and a building. Or at least it was in Natasha’s opinion.

 

As much as it had made her smirk while watching the surveillance footage after the event, Steve’s attempt to detain the Winter Soldier in that way had been ridiculous- even if she had the unexpected pleasure of a moment’s admiration for the ‘gun show’, which she usually only got to enjoy when their time in the weights room overlapped in the morning. Natasha normally went through her lifting routine first thing in the morning, while Steve ran. She would progress to yoga and then ran while Steve was in the weights room and then boxed. If she thought her endurance had been commendable of a morning, then she pushed herself to finish her circuit quicker and let herself watch Steve tackle the punching bag while she stretched as a reward.

 

Natasha thought that she did presently deserve the reward of following behind Steve as he pushed the jeep wrangler up the slope. If she was going to be dealing with interacting with a possible delusion, it would only be fair if she got to visually enjoy the figment of her imagination. But someone had to steer the jeep up the curved ramp.

 

They had discovered that the basement garage was a dangerous ruin when they had entered the space. It was a challenge to find a vehicle that they could use which was undamaged and free of debris. Most of the motor fleet had chunks of cement denting their roofs and engine hoods and the bikes were crumpled or blocked off from access by rubble. The rest would not start, which made Steve and Natasha suspicious as they had changed their batteries and still encountered no favourable results until they tried an old model of Jeep Wrangler. Natasha remembered Tony having said that the bright yellow vehicle had been his in high school and he currently used it every once in a while to go to the beach when nostalgia crept up on him. It did not have any modern computer systems in it. It also had customised turquoise blue leather seats, which made Natasha feel like she was in a large toy Barbie Jeep or something.

 

Natasha and Steve had quietly theorised that computer systems must have been affected in the attack on the city. An EMP would not have taken out most of the cars because contrary to sci-fi disaster movie wisdom, most modern cars were shielded from EMP interference. The governments of the world had thought of that problem decades ago and so had car manufacturers. Any trouble from an EMP would likely come from the few cars that were somehow affected causing traffic chaos as they did not respond and from more accidents stemming from those initial crashes. 

 

So Natasha and Steve carefully cleared rubble to create a path from the Jeep to the exit and directed the SUV along it. The state of the building was so precarious that they agreed not to chance turning the engine on, having been satisfied that the Jeep had power when the lights turned on with a partial twist of the key in the ignition. Instead they rolled it onto the street. Perhaps they could have searched for a car to commandeer out on the streets, but all of the few vehicles they had passed so far since they had regained consciousness in that crater in the road were either crushed or scorched or both.

 

Steve pushed the Jeep until they were a good fifty feet away from the parking entrance. Natasha had her eyes trained on the surrounding ruins looking for threats as she steered with one hand and held a light machine gun in the other. It took plenty concentration in the twilight grey. Once they reached an acceptable distance, Steve left off pushing the Jeep to jog alongside it. Natasha slipped out of the driver’s seat to make way for Steve who climbed in and immediately took hold of the steering wheel. The redhead stood and leaned against the roll bar as she gripped her weapon, and Steve started the engine. The noise was excessively loud in the silence of the deserted city.

 

“How is it that there aren’t even any rats to scavenge the remnants of life in the city?” Steve wondered aloud as they drove towards the Brooklyn Bridge. Natasha pondered absently over the subject as she continued to scan their surroundings for threats. This was New York City- the vermin were used to loud noise and smoke and practically thrived on junk. There should have been a rat-version of Mardi-Gras going on in the many restaurants, bakeries, delis and grocery stores of Manhattan. Instead, it was eerily quiet even though there seemed to be no overt threat looming over the city. It was as though New York was one of those ravaged cities caught up in the middle of a war and they were taking advantage of a ceasefire, but no one else was brave or dumb or desperate enough to leave their shelters yet.

 

“This is messed up but I’m seriously hoping that this isn’t the same kind of shit as that ‘War of the Worlds’ movie Sam made me watch. I definitely preferred reading the book as a kid and not seeing people turned to ash. What if this ash and dust is the dust of a body- of bodies?” Steve babbled.

 

Natasha settled her eyes on Steve as he drove. She only just noticed that he was missing his helmet and hadn’t bothered trying to find a replacement in the Tower. His blond hair that was way too blond to be the real Steve stuck up at odd angles making him look adorably frazzled. The cursing while he spoke reinforced the evidence that his nerves were greatly unsettled. He only swore when he didn’t have time to give a shit about what anyone else would think. Ironically, it was when he was cursing that Natasha knew she was dealing with the real unfiltered Steve Rogers. And the real Steve often showed up in the midst of chaos.

 

His mind must have been pretty chaotic because he was missing his shield too. Steve had made do without the weapon before, and Natasha had deduced that he had been undergoing some sort of conflict about bearing his Captain America shield when she had arrived in Wakanda. But the scenery they were occupying at that moment did not allow for existential crises about life-callings and the pressures of a moral-obligation to the world. A shield would be welcome in the desolate, ravaged warzone they found themselves in.

 

Natasha returned her gaze to the landscape they traversed. The grey urban wasteland certainly was hell’s postcard for bedlam. If the dust they were surrounded by and stirring up as they drove was indeed human remains then there was nothing that they could do about it now. Everything died and was consumed by the living and pummelled into the inanimate before becoming a living thing once again; such was the cycle of life.

 

“So what made you decide to start looking for a house to buy?” Natasha asked to change the subject. She did want to know the answer, but at the same time she dreaded hearing it. She had honestly not known that Steve was interested in living off on his own again. She felt she should have known that that was what he was thinking. Her whole life had been about analysing personalities, predicting what people would do and figuring out how to take advantage of those parameters so that she could achieve her mission objectives. She should have especially been able to understand and predict Steve Rogers.

 

“I…” Steve hesitated. “Sam suggested it. I- Last year, before Ultron, Sam suggested that maybe I should start looking into getting a place in New York. Something to give me roots and ground me. A place I knew I could come back to. He thought it might help me mentally, emotionally. I knew I needed something, so I decided to at least see some places. The house in the photo was one of the places. It sounded great on the write up, it was great when I got there and when I stood on the curb I realised that I remembered wondering what it would be like to live on that street when I was a kid. The houses were built in 1915, so they’re actually older than me.”

 

“Where’re we going, Steve?” Natasha smirked teasingly as she watched Steve from the corner of her eye.

 

“Fuller Place,” Steve answered awkwardly. “In Windsor Terrace.”

 

“The street the movies love?” Natasha chuckled. She knew of the place. It was a picturesque leafy street that was only a block long. The homey atmosphere fit her understanding of Steve’s interpretation of the American Dream.  

 

“Yes,” Steve replied sheepishly. “It has a good atmosphere and the popularity of the street makes it a good investment.”

 

Natasha slid down to sit in the passenger seat as they drove over the Brooklyn Bridge. Steve glanced at her warily before returning his eyes to the road.

 

“A ‘good investment’, Steve? That sounds contradictory to what you were aiming for. You were prepping to settle down,” Natasha accused dryly.

 

“What happened to watching our surroundings?” Steve countered as his eyes darted over the possible sniper points in front of them.

 

“If this is a hallucination then snipers will be imaginary too,” Natasha reasoned.

 

“I would say you’re unbelievable, but then you’d just twist that around to support your argument,” Steve grumbled. “I’m real. You’re real. We’re in the middle of mysterious weird shit.”

 

“Because ‘mysterious weird shit’ always happens to the pair of us, huh?” Natasha chuckled bitterly. “You’re avoiding giving me an answer, Steve.”

 

Steve sighed deeply as the bridge under them joined with land. They continued to drive along in silence, which Natasha only accepted because she knew the expression on Steve’s face meant he was mulling over how he would answer her. Finally they pulled into Fuller Place where the trees were in bud. It was just as still as the rest of the New York landscape they had crossed, except one house in the middle of the street had the lights on.

 

“I take it that one’s… ‘ours’,” Natasha supposed as she gestured with a wave of her hand. Steve did not answer, but parked in the empty space in front of the house. They scanned the street for signs of life before their attention landed on the house next to them. It was just like the picture. There was a stoop that led up to the porch and on either side there were well-kept shrubs. Black wrought-iron balustrading lined the stairs and porch. A pretty little two-seater bench stood on the porch as well as a matching coffee table and several cement plant containers. The house was redbrick and had a bay window upstairs.

 

Steve took another deep breath and jumped out before he strode over to the passenger side of the Jeep with measured steps to hold the door for Natasha and help her out. Natasha took Steve’s hand and hopped out, holding her machine gun ready in the opposite hand. She landed toe to toe with her tall blond companion and her eyes flicked up to meet his for an instant before they purposely moved on to examine the façade of the building in front of them. Steve took a step back and spun around to scrutinise the abode with her.     

 

“When I stood on the curb just like this while I was viewing the house I thought that this place was right,” Steve murmured after a moment. The place looked like it was secure, and Natasha was pressed to find any obviously weak security points despite it being a civilian residential property. She knew what she would have put in to make the place secure. Just getting to the porch would have been difficult without live biometric data if Natasha had anything to do with the security system. But one look at Steve told Natasha that with this property, Steve was interpreting every detail with his heart.

 

“But then I looked down the street and I saw all the people,” Steve continued in a steady low rumble. “And I just thought ‘look at all these civilians- I can’t bring all of what follows me here. I can’t do that to their lives. They’re at peace, this is normal.’ And then I realised that from the beginning there was never going to be a home to go back to after the war. Even if I had been found and revived straight after the crash, there was never going to be a going home to this.” Steve gestured the street.

 

“Maybe that’s why I hesitated in putting an offer in immediately like you’re supposed to in New York these days. I just didn’t think this was possible. I never sat down and purposely wished this little daydream for myself, but I did think that someday I could return somewhere and that it would be home. There would be people there who were home. But I understood then that what I am, what I chose to become, meant that I traded off that possibility. And yet if I didn’t make that choice, I’d probably have died of tuberculosis before the war ended. All of this was never meant for me and yet from everything we’ve seen so far, _he_ got this.”

 

“‘ _He’_?” Natasha queried.

 

“This Steve,” Steve clarified. “The one who’s currently married to you today: May the eighth, two thousand and sixteen; when all I remember is being a fugitive from the majority of the world and an inexplicable wave of fire on the horizon hurtling towards us.”

 

“Let’s see if we can break in,” Natasha suggested quietly. She understood Steve’s sentiments in a way that made her feel claustrophobic. It was the strangest thing to feel that a sensation of lightness freedom also cloyed at her and weighed her down.

 

Natasha stepped forward only to be overtaken by Steve who obviously wanted to shield her from any danger. Natasha frowned in annoyance and walked right past him. If they were together and had a home then she would have been the one to design the security system and she would be able to beat it because she’d have built it with a fail-safe like that.

 

She assessed the area in front of her and found the sensors that would trigger the defence mechanisms, but it seemed that she was correct in assuming that their live DNA was an access key to the property. They made it to the front door easily, and Natasha fished out the fluffy spider key ring that she’d taken from the coffee table in her- ‘ _their’_ apartment back at the Avengers’ Tower. She inserted the most likely key into the keyhole and twisted it around. A flash of blue scanning light beamed over them as they stood tensely and a tiny electronic beep sounded before more door locks were heard whirring. Natasha nudged the door open to reveal the interior of the house.

 

They were greeted with the sight of beautiful herringbone parquet floors, warm pale grey walls and arts and crafts detailing in the woodwork. There was art everywhere. The place had been renovated tastefully and Natasha wasn’t sure whether she was grateful for or bemoaning the loss of the many interior walls that a house like that would have had in its original state. They could immediately gauge their surroundings but they also had very little cover should an unexpected fire-fight break out.  

 

She signalled to Steve to follow her in silently as they fell into protocol for checking out new surroundings. There was a small chance that an approved member of the Avengers team could have sought refuge there, or a trap could have been laid by whoever was the source of the destruction they had found themselves waking up to. Natasha and Steve split up, Steve stealthily heading upstairs while Natasha secured the ground level.

 

She passed through a lounge, dining room and a kitchen. The space was noticeably more lived in than the apartment at the Avengers’ Tower and she deduced that this is where that _Steve and Natalia_ – borrowing from Steve’s move to other the identities whose memories they had no clue of- lived primarily. There was a playpen to one side of the lounge and a rattle on the couch. Natasha had to step over a bright green and yellow cartoonish car with eyes lying on the dining room floor. There was still water in the kitchen sink, although the crockery and cutlery had been washed. These were breakfast things, so Natasha concluded that these bodies had been in this house that morning at least. She felt the urge to smirk to herself as she thought that perhaps she could retire to developing role-player mystery games if she ever woke up from this delusion.

 

“Clear,” Steve muttered in a barely audible-tone behind her. Natasha glanced back at him and took in his appearance. He was wearing that strained frown he wore whenever they were on a mission and he deemed it too dangerous to separate but complied with her advice to anyway. Natasha continued forward to scope out the backyard. It was neat and had a toddler swingset near the back of the lot. No sign of danger or intruders was present. Natasha turned her head towards Steve to indicate the basement in combat-sign and they stalked towards the door that was either the entrance to a pantry or led downstairs. It was the latter.

 

The space was finished off and the ceiling was surprisingly high enough for Steve to get around without any trouble, although he would not be able to jump very high in there. There was a games room and an entertainment area with a huge television screen and Dodgers’ paraphernalia all over the walls. There was also a laundry room and Natasha guessed this was where she would have put the entrance to her bunker, because there was definitely a bunker in her house.

 

But she came up short. There were no signs of a secret entrance, and although Natasha was good she wasn’t so good as to be able to fool herself with her lifetime’s worth of wide-ranging experience.

 

“Um, Nat?” Steve called. Natasha poked her head out of the laundry to find Steve standing in front of a blown up print of a baseball game in the nineteen thirties. He pointed at it timidly with his index finger and smiled lopsidedly. “Misdirection?”

 

A laundry room was a tad bit obvious. Natasha strode out to examine the area around the framed print and noted the barely imperceptible indentation in the wood that was just large enough for a thumb print. Natasha placed her right thumb over the groove and another bright blue light flashed over her and the sound of a vacuum of air being released whooshed as the panel and framed print receded back a few inches and slid off to the left to reveal a stair ladder in a narrow well. Natasha climbed down while holding her machine gun ready. She hopped off the last rung and waited for Steve to join her.

 

“Clear,” Natasha called to him. “And we’ve got working tech it seems.”

 

Steve didn’t bother with using the rungs of the ladder and just slid down holding onto the side rails. The room encompassed the length of the house and held a weapons cache, food storage, a seed bank, medicine and computer and radio equipment (some of which wasn’t modern at all but Natasha knew to be reliable battle-proof models).

 

Natasha immediately rushed to the computers and attempted to hack into the system. Wasting time on guessing a password would have been useless. She didn’t know this Natasha although she hoped she was still smart enough to choose passwords that were not discernible patterns and selected random letters and numbers instead. Steve took a place beside her and after ten minutes of extreme concentration she was into their system. The first thing she noticed was an awaiting message. It hadn’t been read and dated from 16:17 pm that afternoon. She clicked on it to open up a video message.

 

“If you’re watching this then you’ve made it to one of the Avengers’ safe-houses,” Tony Stark stated. The feed was from the interior camera of his suit. The dark-haired man looked just as he had when Natasha had last seen him before she left to attempt her rescue of the team from the Raft, except his skin was sweaty and he had a bleeding gash near his hairline above his left eye. “And if you’re the enemy then I hope a booby-trap blows you the fuck up.”

 

Next to Natasha, Steve straightened up an inch as he sucked in a breath.

 

“I wasn’t in time to save that convoy of civilians,” Tony continued gravely, “but I will avenge them. I will avenge all of us. You have no heart, but I will find a way to make one for you so I can cleave it from you and crush it in my fist.”

 

“If you are a true ally and one of the few that have survived this then you know where I am. I’m the only one who could protect the future, but I’d be glad for a helping hand,” Tony chuckled acerbically. “We owe it to Steve, Natalia, Sam and Clint. Why’d you guys have to… I can’t be the only one.”

 

The message cut off and Natasha and Steve were left staring wide-eyed at the computer screen.

 

“Clint and Sam?” Natasha whispered in a small voice. She knew she was shaking. It was a tiny tremble but it took all her will power to keep it that way. She could keep herself together if she threw herself into the solution, so she did. Furiously typing away, Natasha distracted herself from absorbing the testimony.

 

“Nat?” Steve croaked hoarsely.

 

“I’m trying to get into the satellites. I can’t access the S.H.I.E.L.D. ones or any of the Stark ones,” Natasha brushed him off.

 

“Natasha, stop for-”

 

“I’m trying the old Soviet ones. Three of them were retrofitted with newer tech in the past few years. Everyone thinks they’re just bits of junk floating around up there,” Natasha interrupted. She paused in her typing as the screen flickered to life with images. “There, I’m zooming in.”

 

New York looked as bleak in the darkness as they imagined it did. The destruction encompassed most of the city and there were no signs of life.

 

“It looks like I’ve been using this satellite to monitor things,” Natasha said as she scrubbed her face roughly with her gloved hand. “I’m so stupid, of course we’d have footage of all of this stored already.”

 

The words on the screen weren’t making sense to her. They weren’t Cyrillic, but that stupid western alphabet that looked so odd. Natasha shook her head and blinked forcefully a few times. By the time she had reminded herself that she was not six and beginning to learn the western languages, Steve had already opened up the battle surveillance files.

 

There was a ship. It wasn’t like anything they’d seen before, but from above it looked like a large flat metal leaf hovering above the city. It couldn’t have been more than five blocks long, but it was still an ominous blot on the landscape. The footage continued to relay images of blurring bipedal forms on the ground and air taking out S.H.I.E.L.D. and regular military forces. Whatever those things were they were fully encased in metal suits. There were no features of a face on their helmets, just blank space.

 

And then they got Sam in the heart, a hole burned right through his chest with a laser-like weapon. His body was floating in the Pond in Central Park.

 

Clint was next. One of those things decapitated him when it came up behind him as he took aim from his skyscraper perch. It threw his burning remains off of the Chrysler Building. Natasha choked on the bile in her throat as her knees began to give way underneath her.

 

Then they watched themselves die. Natasha and Steve had been fighting alongside each other, their forms and unified style familiar to their minds as they watched their past selves. And then they were surrounded by those metal suited faceless things. Something strange happened, and it wasn’t obvious what it was from the footage, but the two of them were gasping for air. They fought to break through the ring of their attackers as their energy was sapped from them. They were clawing at the earth when their foes stepped back from their attack and gazed down at them in unison. Steve and Natasha’s jerking bodies were raised off the ground by some invisible force and their progress followed by the lifting heads of the faceless enemy. From a hundred feet in the air they were pummelled in to the tar and cement of the street below.

 

High above, Iron Man was covered in attackers, but he must have seen what happened. Tony must have seen because he incinerated the bodies clinging to him before hurtling towards where Natasha and Steve lay. His progress was hindered and in a moment free of assault he hovered looking down at them before he blazed down to retrieve Steve’s shield which had fallen a few feet away from their bodies. Tony shot up and weaved through the enemy forces to dart down a manhole he blasted open and disappeared into the sewer system.

 

Natasha watched as their bodies remained motionless on the ground. They’d been losing satellite feeds as the battle progressed and they were left with only the old Soviet satellite’s footage. Steve leaned forward to speed up the footage. Two hours passed in seconds on screen and the enemy had left the vicinity before Steve’s body stirred. After a few minutes he had revived Natasha.

 

Steve closed the window on the monitor screen and hung his head. Natasha had sunk to her haunches with her hands on the desk and her chin resting on them. She stared unblinkingly at the navy blue screen. She could feel the skin under the tear tracks that had formed on her cheeks over the past half hour begin to dry and become tacky and tight. She knew she should wipe her face but she couldn’t move.

 

“We can’t let Tony keep thinking we’re dead,” Steve said decisively. Natasha perceived that he was leaning on his fists against the desk from her peripheral vision. “We’ll have to remain radio-silent. We don’t know what’s being monitored and our location may not remain safe. Tony and what remains of our forces will be heading to a secure location. He alluded to a place that we would know- that only the team would know. Ideas, Nat?”

 

Natasha remained frozen where she was, the image of a burning corpse falling from a great height replaying in her mind’s eye followed by brown eyes losing the light of life as they looked up from a hole where bone, flesh and muscle once protected a heart.

 

“Natasha? Natalia!” Steve commanded sternly. Natasha finally blinked and looked up at him.

 

“Is my mind this sick?” Natasha asked him hoarsely. Steve’s severe expression softened and he crouched down next to her cautiously.

 

“Your mind is beautiful. Your nightmares couldn’t conjure this,” Steve soothed.

 

“They have!” Natasha lashed back. She grabbed at the material of his suit at his chest and begged: “Please tell me this is my mind making this up.”

 

Steve stared at her earnestly; the corners of his mouth turned downwards although it was obvious that he was resolved on maintaining a firm flat line between his lips.

 

“I’m sorry, it’s real,” Steve whispered in a cracked voice. Natasha collapsed against him and buried her face into his shoulder as she moaned soundlessly. You wouldn’t hear her mourn- she was raised not to- but that did not mean that it did not happen silently. Steve’s arm came around her tentatively as though he were trying not to startle her, but the warmth of his touch was welcome. He was craved.

 

“I don’t have the strength to pray for it not to be real,” Steve admitted with a murmur into her hair.

 

Natasha gasped for air loudly and pushed away from Steve’s embrace. She held him at arm’s length as she stared at the floor and gathered her wits.

 

“If they’ve taken out the S.H.I.E.L.D. satellites then the bases will be compromised. We probably won’t be able to count on something as well-known as the Stark Family Long Island estate either,” Natasha told him. She took a steadying breath and announced: “We go to the Barton Farm. That’s the best bet. That’s the only place the whole team knows of that we’d never reveal to anyone.”

 

“We’ll need supplies. We should take what we can from our stores here,” Steve added.

 

“I’ll get started on weapons. Sweep the house for data and pack us some clothes,” Natasha instructed. She stood up and without looking at Steve began to move data from their computer system onto secondary storage before she moved onto sorting and packing weapons and ammunition. She felt Steve watch her for a minute before he returned up the ladder and carried out his task.  

 

Natasha switched out her Widow’s Bracelets for an alternate set. The ones she was wearing were functioning haphazardly and must have been affected by what had happened to them. She packed their extra uniforms and selected the most useful weaponry. Soon after Steve had left the bunker she followed hauling two weapons’ cases and a duffel bag with her.

 

The first thing she noticed when she reached the ground floor was that the dishes that had been resting on the side of the sink had been put away. She would have thought it was an intruder hoarding environmental-specific weapons if she didn’t know that Steve got obsessively neat when he was under extreme pressure. His mind just couldn’t take chaos when he had no outlet for his anxiety even if it was the tiniest deviation from military spic and span detail.

 

The lights were still on and would stand out in the darkness of night. But they wouldn’t be the only place with light in the whole of New York City. Anyone with solar power and a timer system probably had light. Still they would do well to remain vigilant and try not to create interesting moving shadows that would attract any _thing_ coming to investigate.   

 

“Nat,” Steve called from upstairs. His voice was still quiet but carried enough for her to hear easily with her trained and enhanced senses. Natasha left her bags on the floor under the coat rack rail and slipped upstairs to where Steve was.

 

“Should I pack clothes for James?” Steve asked tensely. He was standing in a colourful nursery that was filled with many more toys and belongings than the one at the apartment had. In his hands he had a small pair of trousers and a bib. Natasha nodded at him. She couldn’t bring herself to advise him on that pursuit even though Steve probably had no idea what a contemporary child that age needed and Natasha did have nanny training as part of her skill set and was an involved aunt and godmother.

 

“I haven’t gotten to the master bedroom yet,” Steve informed her as he quickly rifled through drawers and collected a decent assortment of baby paraphernalia. A few things were unnecessary and meant for a younger child, but Natasha could commend him for the sense he displayed in choosing the other things.

 

“I’ll do it,” Natasha said and headed towards the master bedroom. It was at the front of the house and had the bay window that they’d seen from the street. At a glance, one could assume it was a featured room in a décor magazine with all the fashionable and tasteful details. There were more of the warm pale grey tones and her favoured mulberry silk linen was present.

 

Natasha began to go through their drawers for anything that might have been of use to them. She put aside a photo album. That kind of thing would help clue them in on their lives before that day. She found an appointments diary and flipped through it scanning the information that was the schedule of her past few months judging from the handwriting. She paused on the eighth of May and flipped back to the beginning of the A5 book and went through it more slowly until she landed up back on the page for the eighth of May.

 

                _Prob Ovulat._

 

Those were the shortened words jotted on the page in purple ink. She’d been reading records of her body temperature and menstrual cycle as noted over the past few months. Natasha slammed the book closed and forced herself to breathe more evenly. She blinked rapidly and stood up from where she knelt beside a bedside pedestal to rush into the en suite bathroom.

 

Natasha glared at her reflection in the mirror above the sink for a moment before she ripped open the under-counter cabinets to search through neat baskets of products. She found the pink box of a pregnancy test and pulled it out. She twisted the box around to find the instructions and then ripped it open to roughly unfold the instruction sheet with a flap. Natasha poured over the typed font and diagrams. She stepped to the toilet bowl and lifted the lid before spinning around. She placed the test stick, empty box and instruction sheet on the marble counter next to her and struggled with the zip of her suit for a few frustrating moments before she could pull it down. She peeled the material off her shoulders and shimmied it down her hips and sat down on the seat. She stood up immediately and grabbed the test stick then sat down again while she held the implement under her crotch. Natasha scrunched her eyes closed and focused on generating urine even though she had no desire to micturate.  

 

Her training did not let her down and she had conjured a sufficient stream after twenty three seconds of self-coercion. Two minutes passed. Natasha counted the seconds in her head with the precision she had trained for since she was four years old.

 

“Nat, you okay?” Steve enquired anxiously from the master bedroom. Five seconds passed before the bathroom door was kicked open and a little white stick was flung at his head. Steve fumbled to catch it, only half glancing at the stick before seeking out Natasha’s form. He was visibly bewildered. “What-”

 

“I’m not pregnant,” Natasha spat at him. Steve’s eyes widened and his brow knitted into a frown rapidly before he looked back down at the white stick in his hands. With a sharp smile and a deceptively light tone of voice Natasha revealed: “Apparently we’re trying for another.”

 

“That’s… I don’t know,” Steve choked unsurely.

 

“Or at least it appears I’m not pregnant,” Natasha hissed as she spun on her heel to dig through the under-counter cabinets. She began to chuck pregnancy test boxes at Steve and he caught them diligently despite his daze. “Pack those. I might be pregnant but it might be too early to tell.”

 

“H-h-how do you-” Steve stammered.

 

“We’re tracking my ovulation. I’m supposed to have ovulated today. The evidence points to me having had sex earlier today,” Natasha ranted. She stopped abruptly and stood up straight facing him. “How do you feel?”

 

“Ummm.”

 

“Like you had sex, right?” Natasha threw a half-finished bulk box of condoms at Steve. “If I’m not pregnant then we’ll probably need these.”

 

“Wha?” Steve spluttered as he read the words ‘Ultra-Thin for Maximum Pleasure’ off of the black and yellow box.

 

“I’m not bringing a kid into a world where I don’t even remember the life I’m supposed to be living,” Natasha argued fiercely.

 

“Nat, I’m not even sure what the hell is going on here. Let’s just carry on with our plan and…” Steve had followed Natasha’s bustling presence around him as she yanked the bedroom closets open, chucked a duffel bag on the bed and began stuffing the assorted boxes from his hands and the floor into it. She had stopped and was staring at a photo-frame on the far bedside pedestal.

 

 

A black and white photo of Steve leaning against a tank during World War Two was displayed in the silver frame. His smile was warm and genuine. To his left a grinning Bucky Barnes had an arm hanging around his shoulder. A bushy-eyebrow-ed man by the name of James Logan sat next to Bucky over the wheels with an annoyed but mischievous expression in his narrowed eyes. On the far right there was a fatigued middle-aged man in Russian uniform with greying whiskers and a hesitant smile. His name was Ivan. And on Ivan’s left, next to Steve, a fourteen year old girl in breeches called Natalia smiled bashfully up at the tall soldier beside her. She kept her hands to herself, while Ivan’s rested on her shoulders. She faced the camera, but the photographer had managed to capture the moment she had sneaked a peek at the man beside her from the corner of her eyes.

 

“It’s the same,” Natasha remarked quietly. “She has that too.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that was okay. It took a while but I got this chapter done eventually. 
> 
> The other night I was rereading a novel– an actual hard copy novel- and I was quite engrossed in it when I suddenly had the urge to type a comment on the events. My hands actually clawed in readiness to type on a book. I wanted to type a comment at the end of a chapter of a piece classic English literature, by Jane Austen to be exact. That is what my reading has become. I love reading fan fiction, but I do still have bookmarks in about four novels I haven’t finished reading. I started reading those books over a year ago.


	5. Where Do You Go When You’re Asleep?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The other morning, I had to pull over out of the rush hour traffic in the suburbs and guess what I saw? A guy in FULL Spiderman costume jogging. He had a mask and everything. And not a scrawny dude, but a muscly dude- like how Peter Parker is in animated 2D. I laughed and waved and he waved back. Made my morning. 
> 
> Speaking of Spidey, I forgot to mention in the last chapter’s notes that Fuller Place, where I have decided that Steve and Nat’s house is, is the street location they chose to shoot as the Parker family home in the Garfield Spidey series (That sounds like Garfield the cat dressed as Spidey- can you imagine that since Garfield hates spiders?)- which is hilarious, because it’s in Brooklyn and not Queens. 
> 
> Also, I’d like to remind you all of my love for blending elements of the very many Marvel Universes and not sticking to cinematic canon.

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Five

 

Where Do You Go When You’re Asleep?

 

_Avengers Base, Upstate New York- Friday, 3 July 2015_

_Her eyebrows looked a fucking mess. Really she should have had laser by then so that she wouldn’t have to worry about whether they were kempt or not, but Natasha was paranoid. The one beauty standard that changed all the time was eyebrow style. She couldn’t afford to have eyebrows stuck in an era, so Natasha let them continue to regrow and plucked them into whatever flattered her face and fit the period._

_Consequently, Natasha felt like she had Goliath Bird-eating spiders poised above her eyes._

_Yes, she was definitely exaggerating because naturally her brows were not bushy at all. There had been girls she grew up with who sans aesthetic intervention really did look like werewolves, but the lycanthrope taunt had been assigned to whoever had been lax in their duties once they had been trained to groom themselves._

_Natasha felt slovenly. The sensation was irritating because it was a reminder that she couldn’t switch her conditioning off. She was shattered, and it took a lot for her to acknowledge that she was at the end of her emotional tether, but of course her mind could not be numb in peace. She had to be thinking of how she should not be sitting among her rumpled up bedding in just her dressing gown and panties with several empty cherries in liqueur chocolate boxes scattered around her and watching a marathon of ‘The Real Housewives of’ somewhere or the other (How Natasha hated that old show ‘Desperate Housewives’ for spurring someone’s brain fart to breed that concept with atrocious stilted vapid reality television and vomit out series about ‘Real Housewives’ who seemed to not do any home-maker activities and who were often not even wives. It was mind-numbingly inane and made Natasha want to flip a table to think that people looked forward to watching that drivel). She had to be actively suppressing the urge to get up, take a shower and pluck her damn eyebrows so that she could be prepared because the only weapon she could count on was herself and for that she always needed to be in peak condition. Peak condition was a svelte, strong, ruthless, alluring Black Widow with tamed eyebrows._

_Natasha’s self-gnawing ruminations were interrupted by a knock at the door of her suite. She was fully planning on ignoring whoever was knocking, but they overrode her door’s locking system. Natasha was immediately on alert, even though her body hadn’t displayed any sign of her change in attitude. It could only be a superior with more demands necessitated by bad news, or an enemy breach. She relaxed a fraction when she saw that it was just Steve. He had his ‘I’m concerned for your welfare’ expression on though, and that did not sit well with Natasha. She always ended up feeling like she should follow her gut instinct to trust him when he looked like that and exuded safety vibes. That’s when she let little snippets of her real opinion and intentions through unplanned. It was like she was building up unnecessary web between herself and Steve when she did that._

_She was expecting a pep talk. She was expecting more of the veiled pity disguised by cheer and attempts to ‘act like normal’ she’d had directed at her by the rest of the team- dammit, even Wanda who’d lost her brother sometimes gave her arm an understanding squeeze! How Natasha hated her most recent mistake, how she hated allowing herself to feel something other than friendship for a man who thought that hiding was a lifestyle she’d actually choose. She’d lived in hiding for practically her whole life as a state secret; she was done with trying to appear to not exist._

_“Here,” Steve said as he handed her an A5 manila envelope and sat down next to her on her bed. She scrutinised his profile trying to measure the impassive expression on his face as he kept his eyes raised and focused on the ceiling. He was on her bed and she was possibly the least dressed she’d been around him, but Steve would avert his eyes in keeping with his ingrained sense of decorum._

_Natasha inhaled deeply and looked down at the envelope in her lap. It was probably photographic evidence of a sighting. She should have been hopeful about the contents of the envelope. She wasn’t. Her guts felt knotted and heavily weighted looking at the innocuous beige rectangle. The probable contents were just a reminder of her own idiocy. The Black Widow should never have made a mistake like Bruce Banner._ Natalia Romanova _would never make a mistake like Bruce Banner. It was dishonourable that_ Natasha Romanov _had, and she’d done that on her own. She’d taken her mission directive five steps too far, ignored her past experience which had taught her that this would end badly for her, and gone and willingly participated in an endeavour that left her exposed to the worst kind of scrutiny: the pitying kind._

_Well, it was always better for one’s sanity to reset the dislocation sooner rather than later. Natasha slipped her finger under the seal flap of the envelope and opened it to pull out a black and white photo. Natasha stared at the picture for ten breathless seconds before her eyes flicked back to Steve’s face questioningly._

_“I found this a little while after Washington,” Steve explained carefully. “I sort of knew, but I guess I kept telling myself it was an impossibility. The part of me that argued that it was an_ improbability _is rather smug at the moment. Stupid, I know, but…”_

_The photograph in Natasha’s hands was not of Bruce Banner furtively ducking through a rural market somewhere tech-low. The photograph Natasha was holding was one of only three photographs she knew of that had been taken of her before her Red Room graduation that were not medical or asset progress records._

_It was evidence though. It was evidence that linked her to Steve Rogers prior to teaming up to form the Avengers. Proof that they’d met long before she’d met anyone else on the team. In that photograph Steve Rogers stood with his arms folded as he leaned against a stationary tank and standing right next to him was a teenage Natalia Romanova. People would have been up in arms if they ever saw that photograph thinking that they’d been lied to about Captain America’s whereabouts for seventy years- except the other three men in the photo were supposed to be dead. Only one of them actually was._

_Ivan Petrovich was gone. He’d died a natural death in 1978._

_Bucky Barnes had died many times, but they always brought him back._

_She’d ran into James Logan in 1964 and then again in 1982 and once more in 2008. His face looked exactly the same._

_In truth, the only one still alive whose appearance had changed much was hers. But then again she’d only been a fourteen year old adolescent in 1942._

_Steve knew. He knew what she was. In the simple act of handing her a photo he had revealed that he knew who she really was and what she was. He’d read more than the thick docket that was allegedly her file but more like just one volume of the total data in existence on her._

_“I wanted you to know that I can understand,” Steve mumbled softly. That sentence was so careful. Steve had used the word ‘can’ instead of just stating that he understood. It showed that he already did understand some part of who she had become. But he knew that unless he had lived it, there was no way he could have understood her experience fully; just like no one else could understand what it was like to die in the ice like he had but not die and instead wake up to a familiar world that was all wrong. For the thousandth time Natasha wondered if she shouldn’t have been the one to guide him through his reawakening, but she hadn’t trusted herself then. She still didn’t trust herself fully._

_“It’s your birthday tomorrow and you’re giving other people presents,” Natasha finally remarked with a small smirk._

_Steve shrugged and looked down at his hands. “I need people, not presents. And I couldn’t figure out the right moment to give this to you, so I decided that I should just do it now.”_

_“It’s the right moment, Steve,” Natasha assured him with a lopsided smile. She cupped his cheek affectionately and wanted to lean in to kiss it, but that wasn’t the right moment._

_“Hey, let’s go get Chinese? I could eat a whole Peking duck by myself,” Natasha suggested as she stood up from her bed and sauntered into her bathroom._

_“So then we order four Peking ducks, because I could eat three,” Steve replied cheekily._

_“Steve,” Natasha chided from behind the half-shut bathroom door. Her eyebrow was raised knowingly as she leaned against the door._

_“Fine, five Peking ducks and two orders of sweet and sour pork chow mein for later,” Steve admitted. “You’ll be snacking as bad as I do later on and you know it.”_

_Natasha grinned insolently at him and shut the door. She took one last look at the photo from 1942 before putting it back in its envelope and placing it on the counter. Then she turned the shower on and got ready to face life again._       

 

@>-`-,----

 

Rogers Residence, Windsor Terrace- Sunday, 8 May 2016

The black and white photo in the silver frame was the same photo that Steve had given her last year. It stood on the far bedside pedestal which was probably on Steve’s side judging from the stack of philosophy books behind it- they were all books she’d read long ago and knew were on Steve’s never-ending catch-up list.

 

The photograph had been in a private collection. The war correspondent who took it had kept it for himself. It had never been published. Steve had tracked down the man who had taken the photograph and many other wartime pictures in various conflicts over his career in the hope that he’d caught a glimpse of Bucky. Unfortunately the photographer had passed on a month before Steve and Sam had found him, but his daughters had allowed Steve to peruse his collection and to take a print of the photograph that proved that Natalia Romanova lived in 1942 and had met Steve Rogers before he was lost to the ice for seven decades.

 

“This is something that’s the same, Nat,” Steve remarked quietly beside her. “This is something real personal that’s the same.”

 

Natasha knew he was right. The photo was more than the details of décor. The photo was evidence of a moment that Natasha and Steve had shared which no one else knew about, and recorded a connection that very few other people were privy to.

 

“It’s overwhelming, huh?” Steve chuckled anxiously.

 

Natasha looked over her shoulder at him and replied simply: “On the contrary, I find it grounding to look at. I always have.”

 

Steve gulped and lowered his eyes to the floor. He wanted to say more but was holding himself back. Natasha would ordinarily have pressed him to deal with the issue as it had arisen, but there were already a whole host of issues which they’d put aside for much later when they’d have the time to lose their minds and then glue themselves back together again for the umpteenth time.

 

“So…” Steve forced out with an awkward smile as he started to pack things into the duffel that Natasha had laid out on the bed. “Why am I packing condoms instead of sensible things like, y’know, toothbrushes and underwear?”

 

“I haven’t gotten to toothbrushes and underwear,” Natasha retorted casually. It was a good point that he’d raised since normally those would have been the first things she’d pack. “And condoms are an overlooked survival item.”

 

“A survival item?” Steve repeated drolly.

 

“Yes,” Natasha bantered, “a smart survivor will seek out birth control because in apocalyptic situations these things tend to run out. Also, they are necessities for modern human life we shouldn’t have to give up. I’m not fashioning condom sheaths from goat intestines every time I want to get it on.”

 

“Goat intestines!” Steve laughed.

 

“But seriously,” Natasha sighed, “I figure that we’ll probably remember these people that we’re supposed to be sooner or later and I still don’t want to bring another kid into this world if we’re facing foes who…”

 

Natasha had become too choked to continue. She’d fallen into the black hole that was thinking about what had happened to the family she loved.

 

“I don’t think we’ll remember,” Steve stated, the sound of his voice breaking her bleak reverie.

 

“What do you mean?” Natasha asked cautiously. Steve slowly ambled around the bed to the far pedestal and picked up the silver photo frame that held the photo that was the same.

 

“Natasha, I wouldn’t forget if all of this happened to you and me,” Steve told her as he gestured a circle with his index finger, indicating the physical clues of the life they were surrounded by. “We have a whole two years of a different experience recorded in our heads. There’s so much that happened in that time and I couldn’t for a moment believe that that wasn’t real. I don’t know how to explain it but they’re both real. What’s in my mind is real and what’s out here is real and I don’t know how to explain it but it is. It has to be.”

 

Steve traced the edge of the silver frame contemplatively and gently placed it back on the pedestal. He frowned and exhaled a shuddering breath. “I wouldn’t forget ‘us’. I think this photo is proof of that. I simply wouldn’t forget. Even if the memories were gone, I’d remember the feeling.”

 

Natasha didn’t think she could argue with that. She felt exactly the same.

 

@>-`-,----

 

Driving at night without headlights or street lights sucked. It was like being in that state of mind where one’s eyes were closed waiting for sleep to unburden you of consciousness. The ashy cloud cover had dissipated as they had left the city but starlight and wooded scenery when one was in motion was like watching the phosphenes the inscription on Natalia’s engagement ring referenced. It also did nothing to distract from the thoughts that plagued Steve.

 

Before he’d joined the army, Steve had been robbed pretty often on account of his size and physical weakness. He could have said that he was almost used to it. It made him mad and he kicked up a fuss standing up to whomever attempted to take what was his whenever Bucky wasn’t there as a talisman to ward off bullies. But Steve was still used to having things taken away from him.

 

And then his mother had died, and although it tore him up like nothing he had known it was still a normal part of life. One’s parents were supposed to die before one did; and if he was honest, Steve had been terrified that he would hurt his mother horrifically by succumbing to the weakness in his physical body and dying before she did. Sarah Rogers had a hard life, and Steve just couldn’t bear to think that he would be the one to break his mother’s heart to the point where she’d never recover. He’d seen other mothers lose their children, and he’d seen his mother see other mothers lose their children in her job as a nurse. She always gave her all in trying to comfort those destroyed women, but he could see the traces of her own fears of losing him in her eyes as she did.

 

Bucky had fallen off that bridge and Steve was wrecked. He lost the only other person who he loved as family. He’d pulled himself together once again and carried on with robotic determination to achieve his aim of ending Hydra. When he found out that the organisation had survived and had ruined Bucky to remodel him into their tool, Steve had felt like his lungs were slowly filling up with lead and he was drowning in an inescapable heaviness.

 

Steve had learned what it was like to lose a person, whether it was expected or not. And then he learned the unconventional ways to lose someone that most people did not experience.

 

In truth Steve did not know whether he hated real death or apparent deaths more. When a person died, missing their energy left him raw and weakened. But when they had ‘died’ but it was all a show to divert attention and outsmart the enemy, Steve was left in tumultuous mess. He was happy that he hadn’t lost that person, but at the same time he’d been shown how he would feel if he lost that person. Coulson and Fury had both been lost and revealed to be alive and while Steve was not truly close with them he’d still been destabilised by their removal from his life. And their resurrections had an unexpected side effect on his psyche.

 

Last week, according to his memory at least, Steve found himself looking down at Peggy Carter’s face as she lay in her casket and wondering if her death was a ruse too. It was a true impossibility but he still had the wild notion forming in his head and part of his logic theorising the probable methods to achieve such an aim as well as rationalising the need for it.

 

Two hours ago, he’d watched footage of Clint and Sam dying gruesomely and he was trying to work out in his head how it was all fake as he drove along the back roads to the Barton Family Farm. He wanted Natasha to be able to embrace Clint when they got there. He wanted Clint to be standing on the porch, leaning against the doorframe with an expectant expression in his eyes and a wily smirk on his face as he watched their approach. He wanted to call Sam to tell him they’d arrived safely and to remind him to feed Natasha’s tarantula. He wanted to hear Sam complain about how Natasha didn’t have to take the spider theme to the extreme and how it was a stupid idea for Steve to have encouraged her to buy the spider, which Sam ended up having to look after whenever Steve and Natasha were away from base.

 

He’d lost brothers again. He’d lost a best friend again. Steve wanted to stop the car, run out into the fields and scream into the night. He didn’t want to have to tell Sam’s mother that her son was gone. The woman had practically adopted him into the Wilson family. Darlene Wilson insisted he come to their home for Thanksgiving and Christmas. She spent half her weekly call to Sam talking to Steve. He didn’t want to tell her that Sam was dead. He didn’t know how.

 

He’d missed out on telling Mrs Barnes to her face that Bucky had been lost. But he’d written a letter to Aunt Winnie. He told her as carefully as he could what had happened to Bucky. There’d been no guarantee that he’d be able to make it back to New York and out of the war alive to tell her what had happened to her son and Steve knew that the military notices were never enough to soothe a grieving person left behind’s need to know for closure.

 

He couldn’t give Darlene Wilson that kind of closure. Steve didn’t remember this life with Sam and he didn’t remember experiencing how Sam had died as it happened and he felt false because of it.

 

As for Clint and the Barton family, Steve felt absolutely numb where they were concerned. He couldn’t tell those kids what had happened to their father. He couldn’t tell Laura who he had already betrayed once by asking her husband to help him out on the mission that no longer seemed to exist anywhere other than in Steve and Natasha’s memories. Clint was supposed to be as safe as he could be considering who he was. Clint was retired. Clint was a dad with three kids, a wife and a farm.

 

Now both men were corpses decaying in the wreckage of New York. Steve and Natasha both wanted to go back to find their bodies, but how could they when they had no means to keep their remains and they still had survivors to find? They had a son they didn’t remember and they owed it to the little boy to make sure he was safe.

 

Steve knew Natasha felt as guilty as he did over the topic. He’d heard her promise to Laura once to bring Clint home safely as she always did. It sounded like a ritual exchange and like Laura trusted implicitly in it. He figured that Natasha did too. The woman wasn’t overtly superstitious, but he could tell she did certain little things before battle in fear of regretting not having done them later on. Sometimes it was just a little moment of sincere uninterrupted eye contact before they were dropped into the fray, but that was Natasha’s way of expressing her ‘last words- just in case’. They were not words per say, but emotions and Steve knew that those lingered longer sentences whose words could be altered and jumbled in recollection.

 

It struck Steve suddenly, as he passively mourned Sam and Clint, that once again he didn’t know the fate of his oldest, closest brother-friend. He had just lost Bucky again. Would the photographs in the albums Natasha brought along reveal whether or not he had ever found Bucky in the life that he did not remember? Could he and Natasha truly have lived two completely different and separate lives tied together by little details of commonality?

 

It was like he was in an alternate world, the kind that he would never consciously remember. Steve wondered if maybe this world, which was real and he definitely knew in his gut that it was, was that place people went when they dreamed. He’d never allowed himself to imagine that he could live this life with Natasha. He hadn’t the strength to disappoint himself more than facing reality everyday did. The Steve that he was, wasn’t enough to tenaciously seek this kind of life. People didn’t remember all the dreams they had while they were asleep, but there was scientific evidence that their brains adopted the same patterns many times in one night and those patterns matched up to the recordings of periods where people experienced dreams they could remember. Maybe in all those unremembered dreams, they were living lives somewhere else.

 

Still, Steve felt robbed. Regardless of whether he really was this other Steve but just couldn’t remember that he was, he felt robbed. This Steve lived what he secretly wanted but was too over-cautious to even imagine. It set his blood to simmering. It was stupid, but he was angry that he was suddenly in a world where he was married to the woman he loved, had a child with her; and yet he’d never know what it had felt like to kiss her for real for the first time or experience the moment when she agreed to spend her life with him or be able to reminisce about the joy they’d felt when they found out they could be parents and that they were going to be parents. This Steve had it all, but where was he? Where were Steven and Natalia Rogers? Were they living in another life you could only get to through an unremembered dream?

 

Maybe there was another somewhere else where Natasha wasn’t hunched up sitting next to him with silent tears slowly rolling down her cheeks as she watched the scenery whip by and fade into the night.    

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I actually cried properly writing that last segment. Also Bucky and Sam’s mom’s names are actually listed as Winnifred and Darlene on the Marvel site, but no one calls anyone named Winnifred ‘Winnifred’ casually, so ‘Aunt Winnie’ had to do for Steve who would have been like another son to her. [Random trivia: I was almost named Winifred. I am glad I wasn’t.]
> 
> This chapter was a tiny bit shorter than the others, and I guess we have half an answer to some of the questions that may have formed in your minds…(???) Actually I really struggled with deciding what to reveal. I felt like I had a hand of cards with three possible really good selections to put down on the table and I couldn’t decide which one to play. I was truly unable to decide for a few days even after doing things like making spider diagrams where I asked myself questions about how and why things were happening in the story.


	6. Ghilan

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Firstly, thank you to all of you who have left such lovely comments on the previous chapters. Reading them and interacting with you has encouraged me greatly. Thanks for the kudos too! I feel like we have the most amazing people manning this ship.
> 
> Secondly, I just wanted to say that I finally got a chance to see ‘The Arrival’, and if you get the chance to and are into questioning your perception of reality go see it. But you’re reading this, so I guess you must be somewhat into mindfuckery. Also JR- we have to support!

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Six

Ghilan

 

“Stop the car, Steve,” Natasha commanded quietly.

 

The instruction came out of the blue, but Steve did his best to employ his advanced driving training and brought the yellow Jeep Wrangler to as quick and quiet a stop as he could.

 

“What is it?” Steve asked as he examined their surroundings coolly.

 

“Even if our forces are in hiding, we should have come across signs of surveillance or guards by this point. If the Barton Farm is where we’re meant to muster, then we’ve already past where the base perimeter should have been established,” the redhead explained.

 

Natasha had a valid point.

 

“What if our numbers are too low for that?” Steve forced himself to counter.

 

“Clint had the technological means to make up for that,” Natasha informed him. “We could be headed into a trap. We could be headed to completely the wrong locale. If it’s the former, we shouldn’t gift-wrap and deliver ourselves to the enemy’s lap. We go on foot. I know the approved back way onto the premises.”

 

Steve and Natasha gathered the necessary supplies for their recon expedition after they parked the Jeep in a thicket. They covered the brightly coloured vehicle with a khaki tarp they’d brought along and headed off to make their way to the Barton’s farm. Natasha led them as they cut through the neighbouring property.

 

“Follow my path closely,” Natasha ordered impassively as she gestured for Steve to get behind her after they both landed on the other side of the deceptively simple perimeter fence that bordered the Barton Farm. Steve felt a little silly for wondering if there was a camera in a scarecrow somewhere along the way. Knowing the calibre of agent that Clint was, visual surveillance was more likely to have been built into the knots of tree branches and seamlessly disguised in fence posts and disused antique water-pumps.   

 

Steve had never believed that crop fields were particularly scary locations in horror movies, but as they hiked carefully through the silent lands Steve fully appreciated how the surroundings could make one feel tense. In the darkness, the winter rye resembled an opaque sea. The crop hadn’t yet reached its full height, but Steve and Natasha were already wading through it. A flash of pop culture invaded his mind and Steve thought of velociraptors ambushing from the ‘depths’. Hopefully the elsewhere they were currently in did not allow for that to be a likely scenario for anyone to find themselves in. And, thankfully, the crop was only rye and not corn. Being surrounded by cornstalks and having to look up at the stars to keep track of the direction they were travelling in would be stressful. All that unhindered sameness everywhere one turned would have had a claustrophobic effect on one’s perception. It would be like treading water in a murky lake.

 

Steve knew he was being ridiculous. Just hours ago he’d experienced the world go quiet, then burn up and he was still alive somehow. Letting empty farmland and rows of plants get the better of him was a little pathetic. Still, the fire that consumed his reality and spit him out into a new life to be lost in had come from the horizon. It could happen again.

 

Inhaling deeply, Steve decided to focus on the physical details of the situation he found himself in. He was damn tired, so focusing on how his body felt was shoved to the periphery of his perception. He turned his attention to rhythm of his pace as he followed behind Natasha. From there he noticed how his step was in time with hers and wondered if she had observed that. It always felt strange when a stranger was suddenly in step with you and Steve could sense some of that eeriness between them, but it dissipated quickly. It seemed they’d both accepted the other being in tune bodily.

 

Steve’s sensory awareness remained spread out looking for the odd thing out in the tranquil landscape. The steady rustle of the breeze through the stalks thickened into a miasma of homogeneity and his mind centred on the one self-propelled entity in his proximity.

 

At first, he was solely entranced by the intense red of her long braid as it swayed in a gentle slither against her back. The scarlet rope of hair was fuzzy after enduring battle and travel. The shoulders of the woman whose back the braid rubbed against were held upright conveying the strength of her body. If he had been looking at an ordinary woman, Steve might have thought her frame was slight. But her presence could be so overwhelming as to render the toughest into a babbling mess- if she chose to exert that force that is. The many weapons she bore at that moment added to the intimidating image.

 

Ironically the two sashes of ammunition she carried slung across her body, hung from both her shoulders to form an ‘x’, accentuated her hourglass figure and highlighted the mesmerising sway of her hips. She hadn’t always walked like that, but since he’d met ‘Natasha’ she had. It would have been disconcerting if the gait she used had always been synonymous with her. He’d never have left her in 1942 if it had. He’d have pulled as many strings as he could to somehow make her Peggy’s assistant or something. Steve would have gotten a whole load of flak for recruiting a Russian, and he would have been glad to face it for the young girl. The Russians had switched sides only once they’d been double-crossed after all. Still, no child should have had to return to the Red Room or a life like they provided. But Captain America and his Howling Commandoes had moved on to other missions. He’d left Natalia with her concerned adoptive father. She had dreams about dancing in the Bolshoi, and her face became another reason for Steve to end Hydra. No one could dream of the future with hope when they were all drowning in war. He left even though something niggling at him- the sensation that it wasn’t quite right to do so- told him he shouldn’t just go.

 

Decades later they were brought back into each other’s path. And that part of him that niggled at his mind in concern, which was probably his intuition, seemed to tune to her frequency steadily until one day it was like they resonated with each other. They’d been jolted into sync the first time they’d fought side by side as Avengers, but then they had fallen back into their own separate orbits. But as they’d continued to work together closely Steve had felt as though they had begun to settle into place. It was like they were probing each other to see if they had interlocking parts.

 

Then silence for ages and when Natasha came back into his life Steve felt like he was looking at the correctly aligned interlocking puzzle piece to fit his own. Except they had suddenly both become magnets with the same polarity. They could only hover, facing each other at a set distance. Natasha had zoomed to match up with that other guy and it hurt.

 

Steve had been dazed and numb, so he did what he always did when he did not know how to handle his emotions. He smiled through the pain. It was something he learned in childhood to alleviate a few of his mother’s woes and it had served him well before so he utilised the technique again. No one noticed. Well, Sam noticed but he kept his opinions for private conversation and never pushed Steve too far.

 

Natasha was abandoned and hurt in the end. But Steve’s anger at the other guy would have no impact on the fact that Natasha was different again. They were starting all over once more. There was a chasm between them thick with constructed obstacles. Steve concluded that he wasn’t the one to change, but perhaps it was his responsibility to evolve to match if Natasha had made herself not fit.

 

Against the vivid colour of her hair, and the inkiness of the night, Natasha’s ivory skin stood out. Steve’s gaze was drawn to the nape of her neck where all three shades met. He could feel his chest tighten and his heart rate pick up a notch as he built another layer of yearning memory over the thousands of contemplations of following the impulse to press his lips against the soft skin of her neck.

 

All at once he was assaulted with the urge to reach out to her, take her in his arms and kiss her. He already felt the rush from breathing in her scent. His blood zinged with the excitement of feeling the heat of her skin and the corporeal steadiness of her form. He could swear his lips and tongue tingled with the memory of her mouth.

 

But she was three paces ahead of him. Natasha had only ever kissed him once and it was admittedly terrible. Yet instinct told him that kissing her sincerely would not feel new, and it would not feel familiar. Kissing Natasha would just feel right.

 

Thankfully they reached a meandering creek in a spring lush dell before Steve’s urges compelled him to act.

 

‘This is not the rendezvous point,’ Natasha signed to him as she surveyed the geography. ‘Too little sign of any kind of current habitation.’

 

‘We have to be sure,’ Steve signed back alert and present in the moment. Natasha gave him a disbelieving look, before half-raising her eyes to the heavens and reluctantly nodding her agreement. ‘Nat, I’d rather know that Laura and the kids are not huddled in their bunker terrified and cut off from the rest of the world.’

 

‘I agree,’ Natasha signed. She hopped across the waterway using several small rocks and continued up the embankment on the other side. Steve followed in her wake, clutching his light machine gun in his hands. There should have been critter noise. Only the sound of water, wind and the plants affected by them enough to be moved could be heard by the pair. They’d almost reached the cusp of the hill when Natasha’s arm shot up to gesture a halt.

 

The tiny hairs embedded in the skin running along Steve’s spine stood on end, rising in an instant wave from between his shoulder blades and rushing up to the crown of his head. Natasha signalled for him to crouch and he mirrored her as she did so. Steve stepped beside Natasha and together they cautiously approached the summit so they could peer over. Spotting two humanoid figures, Steve and Natasha dropped to the ground and silently leopard-crawled up to where they could see again. 

 

Natasha’s hand immediately grasped at Steve’s arm as they both realised what they were looking at. The name ‘Wanda’ was on the tip of Steve’s tongue, ready to call out to the little sister he’d unofficially adopted, but Natasha’s fingers clawed firmly into his bicep and Steve corralled his impulse. _Pietro Maximoff_ was slouching against his twin sister and texting on a cellular phone with one hand. There was no time to be stunned or even question whether he believed that this elsewhere they were experiencing could really hold a living Pietro Maximoff or whether he was suffering a hallucination.

 

‘Empty mind. Quiet mind,’ Natasha tapped in Morse code on Steve’s arm, reminding him of the protocol they’d trained to use in case Wanda had ever turned against them. They both flopped soundless to the floor as they cleared their minds of thought to just exist as aware beings in a state of meditation.

 

Up was right and down was left. There was the air all around and inside him. Green shoots of grass jutting out up into the air filled his vision. There was a separate living thing nearby. It was scarlet and ivory but saturated in darkness. The Earth underneath him was comforting. The damp dirt scent meant vitality and his heavy body belonged to the ground which tugged him close so firmly. 

 

Black leather sneakers came into Steve’s scope. Dark brown leather boots stepped forward opposite the black sneakers.

 

“You aren’t dead,” a feminine voice stated with mild curiosity. The Earth suddenly relinquished its hold on Steve, abandoning him so that he floated in the air. He felt soil under his knees and shins, but the Earth had no hold on him. Some other caressing force exerted influence over his body. Up was up and down was down again and Steve was looking into the wrong pair of green eyes. Burgundy locks wisped in the breeze before him.

 

“Pietro, I think they’re trying to lock me out of their minds,” Wanda snickered in Sokovian. It was surprisingly easier for his ear to grasp the meaning of Sokovian words and not attempt to search for the Russian vocabulary they sounded so similar to now that Steve was in a relaxed meditative state. Wanda straightened up, pulled back by Pietro’s arms. The silver-haired young man rested his chin on his sister’s shoulder as he wrapped his arms tighter around her waist. Pietro delivered a soft peck to Wanda’s neck and smirked at Steve as he ran his eyes over the blond’s figure.

 

“That’s not going to work,” Wanda crooned at Steve and Natasha in heavily accented English. Across from where he knelt, Steve could see his scarlet mate in a stance similar to his: her slack body was held up by an invisible force so that she knelt on the ground. Her eyes were vacant though her chest still expanded and fell with the mechanics of breath. Her firearm lay abandoned on the floor. Wanda traced her fingers down the side of Natasha’s face and bowed her head to look into the other woman’s eyes.

 

“This is different to earlier,” Wanda mumbled in Sokovian. “Delicious…”

 

“How so?” Pietro enquired curiously- continuing the conversation in their mother tongue- from a few feet away. He’d blurred to take a seat on a fence and swung his left leg back and forth in a wide arc.

 

“It’s the same but different,” Wanda remarked. “This one’s really doing her best to keep me out. It feels as though she’s about to snap and spit at me.”

 

“She’ll have an aneurism before that happens,” Pietro scoffed. “What about Captain Puppet here? Should we string him up and play with him a bit?”

 

Wanda left Natasha’s side and sauntered over to Steve to place a hand on his cheek. And then it started. Steve felt like he was having a panic attack and couldn’t breathe. But he knew he was breathing, his chest kept on moving in a steady rhythm as he’d trained for. Pressure against his sinuses spread to the hard palate of his mouth. The creeping sensation crawled up his uvula and to the back of his skull finally spiralling into twin knots behind his eyes. The pressure tightened slowly until all of a sudden Steve felt the involuntary urge to gag. An invisible hand had been shoved up his throat into his brain cavity and was rooting around. But there was nothing in his thoughts but the perception of sensation and the input his senses gave him on the surrounding environment.    

 

“This is so curious,” Wanda marvelled. Pietro glared at her expectantly. The burgundy-haired girl ignored her twin and gently traced her hand down Steve’s face and jaw. Her hand twisted so that her index finger ghosted over his lips back and forth and then down over his chin and under to tilt Steve’s visage up to meet her regard. “These are definitely the same people- the same Avengers we see everywhere on T.V. and have met- but it’s like their minds are now on a slightly different frequency.”

 

“Can I see?” Pietro requested reaching out for his twin sister’s hand once he’d appeared at her side so quickly that he seemed to have teleported there. Something wet trickled down Steve’s upper lip. It smelled like metal and the scent invoked an inexplicable rage to bubble up somewhere deep inside of him.

 

“I’ll show it to you later,” Wanda dismissed as she waved him off. “They’re really fighting me and I think I’ll break the true-blue trooper if I push him much more. Besides, I have a feeling they might be useful later on.”

 

“You’re going to let them go?” Pietro laughed. “You know it’s for their own good if we just kill the humans, little sister.”

 

“All of that rhetoric is tiring, dear brother,” Wanda said as she let Steve’s chin slip from her hand and spun around to swagger over to Pietro. She stretched up on her tip-toes to press her mouth lingeringly on her brother’s lips. “There’s no useful intel here. We’ve already been looking around the area for an hour. Let’s go, Aunt will be missing us.”

 

The Maximoffs disappeared in an instant and Steve crashed face-first into the dirt. Spluttering out the soil in his mouth he scrambled to shake himself out of the trance he’d put himself into. He lifted his head to find Natasha scooping up her gun and clambering to her feet. It had been taxing to face off against the Wanda they knew but this other Wanda was suffocating.

 

“He’s alive,” Natasha gasped. “What the fuck was that between them?”

 

“Are you okay?” Steve croaked as he struggled to support himself on his shaking limbs.

 

“Your nose is bleeding,” Natasha informed Steve as she stumbled towards him. “Did she get in your head?”

 

“No, but the pressure was so intense,” Steve reported. Natasha fell to her knees and clung to his shoulders as she attempted to check Steve over for injuries. Steve wanted to shrug her off and reverse their roles, but increasing nausea made it hard to focus on anything other than trying not to retch and then collapse into his own vomit. “She had more finesse- infinitely more finesse but it was all just so…”

 

“Relentlessly overwhelming?” Natasha offered. Steve nodded in agreement. Steve felt the light pressure of Natasha’s head resting against the back of his skull as he willed his vision to clear of the dancing black, green and purple blobs that were slithering in front of his face.

 

“We have to hurry to check the house,” Natasha whispered. Steve could tell she was exhausted. “If Wanda and… Pietro are not on our side then- I don’t… She’d be able to sense their minds in the bunker. I don’t hope for them to be there anymore, Steve!”

 

“Me too,” Steve rasped.

 

“They called us ‘humans’ like it was a derogatory word, Steve,” Natasha commented worriedly. “I don’t want to believe what that implies.”

 

“I think this is the most fucked day of my life,” Steve hissed.

 

“Don’t jinx it,” Natasha chided. She leaned her weight on Steve and he groaned at the momentary extra effort his muscles needed to exert as she got back up on her feet. Steve huffed at the soil beneath him and gathered up his determination before pushing off the ground and straightening his legs to stand. He groaned when he realised he needed to bend down again to pick up his weapon. Natasha watched him do that wearily and once she judged him stable, she leaned over and swiped her hand sloppily over his mouth area.

 

“You still had blood under your-” Natasha offered in explanation before abruptly turning to continue down the approved path to the Barton family’s farmhouse. The Maximoffs could have been watching them, but it wouldn’t matter if Laura and the kids had already been harmed. If a hostile Wanda had found them, then she would have deluded Laura into believing it was safe to open up the bunker.

 

“Now we know for sure that Wanda’s not in our heads,” Steve muttered. “I’d forgotten what it felt like having her in your head and fucking you over.”

 

Natasha stopped with a stumble and swung around clumsily, only just catching her balance as she nearly careened over a rock.

 

“She didn’t bother with tricking us with a delusion. She just tried to look through as if she was scanning a book, like the…” Natasha trailed off.

 

“Like the what, Nat?” Steve asked as he swallowed the urge to throw up. He stood facing her with his hands on his hips.

 

“I told you I don’t want to think-” Natasha snapped.

 

“Pertinent information, Natasha!” Steve cut her off tersely. “Focus. We both need to have the same understanding of the situation.”

 

Natasha sighed and turned back to recommence their trek to the farmhouse. “There were other programs outside the Red Room that provided training for people with special abilities. Wanda, facing her just now reminded me of training with… natural telepaths. The ones who’d been in service their whole lives. She has that level of dexterity.”

 

“Right, good to know,” Steve nodded as he followed Natasha. Their steps quickened as they recovered some.

 

“There were a lot of people with special natural abilities in programs funded by the Soviet State. If there was something unusual about you as a child, you immediately became a ward of the State,” Natasha expounded. “I collected some of the participants in those programs from their previous abodes.”

 

Steve grunted in acknowledgement. Natasha was telling him something important, and he registered that fact. He just could not do anything with that data when his brain felt like it had been put through a meat grinder and left to pipe onto the floor.

 

“Ha!” Natasha cried in a triumphant tone as they finally caught sight of the farmhouse after they broke through the treeline. She bolted for the door and Steve forced himself to jog wearily after her, searching the surroundings with his eyes for any extra unwanted guests. He trudged after Natasha over the threshold as his muscles screamed at him to lie flat on the floor.

 

“S’clear!” Natasha yelled at him as she knocked into his shoulder stumbling past him coming down from the staircase to run towards the pantry. She yanked open the door and by the time Steve had caught up to her there was a large square hole in the floor and Natasha was stepping into the cavity to drop down. Steve stepped forward to peer into the hole and saw Natasha’s red hair below him. She stepped forward and disappeared from view. Jumping the tiny distance would be hell on his legs- his muscles were tired in a way that only ever accompanied the end of battles deciding the fate of the Earth. So he jumped.

 

Natasha was already submitting herself to biometric scanning in front of a huge shiny steel door. Steve arbitrarily wondered if Laura came down there to polish the door with baby oil like she did with all the other stainless steel appliance surfaces in the house. She taught him to do the same in his home. In a few seconds the doors opened up to reveal an antechamber. Steve and Natasha squeezed in as the door behind them closed and they waited for the security system to unlock the second door that would presumably lead to the emergency bunker. In the confined space, Steve was once again hit with the warm amber, spicy, floral scent of Natasha’s perfume as it pervaded through the stench of sweat, soil and blood.

 

A whoosh of air indicated a vacuum unlocking and the door opened to an empty room. There was furniture and equipment, but there wasn’t a soul in sight.

 

“Their go-bags are gone,” Natasha indicated with a flick of her wrist at an empty spot next to a set of shelves stocked similarly to the bunker under the house on Fuller Place. Natasha stepped into the room, quickly turned her head every which way and concluded: “They evacuated. They must have taken the tunnel and gotten out by car.”

 

She dashed over to the computer station and entered passwords as she spoke: “I don’t know if I know the passwords, but I’ll take the chance. I don’t know how I could know if this world is so different! But I have to find out what’s become of them right now.”

 

Steve stepped in and slid down the wall at his back as he watched as the system started up for Natasha. The second stainless steel door closed and sealed them in. Natasha had the correct passwords. It had been a risk considering that emergency bunkers belonging to people in their circle of friends tended to blow up if they’d been compromised, or were in danger of being compromised. This wasn’t their home with a computer system attuned to their biometric data giving them top clearance.

 

Natasha eagerly continued to type until she had pulled up footage of Laura, Cooper, Lila and Nathaniel bustling into the bunker. They watched a few minutes of footage showing the family collect their bags and Laura typing at the computer. A door opened on the other side of the bunker, and the family ducked through it. The rest of the footage showed the Bartons run down a long corridor that probably extended until past the barn judging from the angles. Laura got her kids into an innocuous, plain white Toyota and drove off through an underground tunnel that led to a main road three miles away.

 

“They got out,” Natasha breathed. She sagged against the computer station and fell into a heap on the floor. “Wanda didn’t find them. This is from hours ago. This was just after the battle. I wonder if they know…”

 

“Natasha, this isn’t where Tony meant when he alluded to our rendezvous point,” Steve diverted. He couldn’t handle thinking about the deaths of their friends at that moment. Steve had to concentrate on hope and if he had to force Natasha, whose realist personality swayed towards pessimism more often than not, to do so as well then he’d grit his teeth and out-will her. 

 

“Then I don’t know where we’re supposed to be, Steve!” Natasha hissed.

 

“We have to figure this out, Natasha,” Steve admonished.

 

“Oh get off your high-horse, Steven- I’m not being lax in my duties,” Natasha sneered.

 

“I’m not trying to- ugh! Y’know what, Romanov- fuck no, I can’t. We need to get out of this. Let’s think of what we can do,” Steve bit out.

 

Steve and Natasha crouched on the floor wheezing for a few minutes before Natasha rolled onto her knees and peered over the desk surface of the computer station.

 

“They didn’t use it,” Natasha murmured. Steve walked over on his knees to kneel beside her. Natasha pointed at a small device. It was a plain black four inch square box with a grey circular button in the middle of it. “It’s a panic button with a direct line to the ultimate cavalry: Nick Fury. Clint’s the only person I know with this kind of distress beacon. It was part of the deal in getting all of this.”

 

“Well,” Steve nudged. He peered at his companion imploringly.  

 

Natasha pressed the button. A little red light flashed three times before it was replaced with a constant green glow. It was working. Now all that Steve and Natasha had to do was wait to be picked up. They hoped that the next person they encountered was a friendly. Natasha flopped against Steve’s shoulder, and hung her head.

 

“Hey,” Steve whispered. “Don’t pass out on me.”

 

“Like I fucking would, Rogers,” Natasha grumbled. “Not with Pietro Maximoff blurring around and kissing his sister out there. Not with the world going to shit. Not with not knowing if I’ll slip into another world if I do. I don’t want to lose you too, Steve.”

 

Natasha curled her hand around Steve’s forearm and slid her fingers down to his wrist. Understanding the prompt, Steve lifted his hand so that Natasha could entwine her fingers with his. They sat on the floor like that, both unable to fight the lingering mind-fog that their encounter with Wanda had left behind. The pair stared at the grey polished concrete floor until a familiar set of footsteps behind them broke them out of their daze. They hadn’t noticed the sound of the stainless steel door quietly opening. In unison Steve and Natasha twisted around to face the new arrival.

 

“How in the motherfucking hell are you two still alive?” Nick Fury asked them levelly. He had a Glock pointed at them.

 

“Is that kind of language necessary?” Steve asked with a grimace. Natasha glared at him incredulously. “And if you’re going to shoot us, then shoot us, because we’ve had the worst day in the history of bad days. Also it would help us to figure out if you’re on our side or not.”

 

Natasha threw her arms up in the air in frustration. “You just- it’s like you paid absolutely no attention to my espionage lessons.”

 

“We do not have time for that,” Steve countered.

 

“Do we have time to be dead? I thought I just said that I don’t want to lose you,” Natasha scolded.

 

“I am still here,” Nick reminded them. “And I am terribly curious to know what the fuck is going on.”

 

“So are we, Fury,” Natasha replied fatigued.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter just went off on its own journey. Things just happened. The title of the chapter is the Arabic plural form of the word ‘ghoul’, which the word originates from.


	7. The Sin of Abstinence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys have no idea how happy it makes me when I see that people are reading this story. It’s especially exciting when new readers comment because I feel so honoured that you all would decide to trust me with your time and attention. I’m so glad that all of you out there took a chance on reading my stories. Seriously, I’m amazed that people are still reading ‘Got This’ when it’s definitely not foremost in the list of updated fics. 
> 
> Thank you for reading! 
> 
> WARNING: The first part of the second flashback to the past in this chapter is a little triggery- because wartime horrors- but don’t worry, Nat gets through it intact. It’s scary, but she kicks ass. 
> 
> Also poetry credit to Konstantin Simanov.
> 
> And now, another chapter…

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Seven

 

The Sin of Abstinence

 

Sitting still had been a bad idea. It had been years since Natasha had to exert herself to such taxing extremes and so she had forgotten that small titbit of self-knowledge on her capabilities. Psychic assault after physically pushing oneself beyond what was wise- all while enduring emotional challenges- may have been a standard test of endurance in the Red Room but it wasn’t truly part of the life she had come to live. Natasha made sure they all got the best training possible, but death was not an accepted outcome of the skills-building regimen that the Avengers followed. Consequently, after allowing herself to indulge in using Steve’s soothing presence and ever-steady frame to hold her up Natasha found that she _needed_ Steve for support.

 

Natasha recognised that this Nick Fury who had responded to their distress call may have looked exactly like the Nick Fury she knew, but she was aware of the fact that she should not trust him so easily. Still, he was their best option for information and shelter so she would go with him willingly. If Fury was not worth their trust, then she at least had the Steve she knew by her side and she would know where he was and what condition he was in so her aim of protecting him would be easier to fulfil. And she could lean on her Steve- physically.

 

Sitting still had allowed her mental and physical fatigue to catch up with her, and standing up and walking again had felt like she had just endured hours of uninterrupted centrifugal training at the Soviet space program training site Military Unit 26266. She had never figured out why anyone would actually expect that an assassin would need cosmonaut training. Whoever had ordered that to be added to the Black Widow’s skills set had been terribly optimistic about humanity’s race towards the stars. It had been decades since she had passed the required training, and still she hadn’t been into space. Man had forgotten about the Moon and Mars was not a national priority for anyone, yet the Avengers found themselves defending the Earth against aliens almost every other year.

 

It took great determination to put one foot in front of the other after Natasha had climbed back up the ladder that led down to the Barton family’s emergency bunker. The need to retch was intense once she had reached the surface, but she felt compelled to save face in front of Fury as he watched her crouch on the pantry floor with her head between her knees. She envied Steve’s ‘Original Erskine Serum Improved-Blood’ when he emerged from the square hole in the floor and did not roll onto the wood boards beside her, but managed to keep his head up as he stood and even held out his hand to help her stand.

 

‘Don’t vomit. Don’t vomit,’ rang through her mind like a mantra as she clung to Steve’s hand while he led the way before her, following Fury out of the farmhouse. They’d just reached the hallway when her energy levels gave out and Natasha had to flop against the wall to keep her body upright. Steve spun around to face her, bracing his weight against the wall with his forearm as he teetered off axis. Natasha could see the stained star on the chest of his uniform, and she focused on that. She winced at a bubble of nausea expanding within her oesophagus, and in the act of closing her eyes was reminded of the last conversation she had had in that exact same spot.      

 

 

_Thursday, 28 April 2016_

_“I’m proud of you, but you’re also completely exasperating, you know that right?” Clint Barton remarked as he watched his redheaded best friend fix her appearance in the hallway mirror before she left._

_“How so?” Natasha asked curiously. She raised an eyebrow anxiously as she focused on her friend’s reflection in the mirror. “I thought we’d established years ago that I’m exceedingly stunted in various areas of life outside of armed and unarmed combat, infiltration, espionage and seduction.”_

_“Not having the freedom to deal with emotional issues is very different from not knowing how to deal with emotional issues,” Clint countered. He reached over to slip a bobby pin out of Natasha’s hair and put it in his mouth as he smoothed her hair further before continuing to speak. “One always knows what they should do if it’s important enough.”_

_“Yes, logic will dictate what one should do,” Natasha agreed as she placed her hand next to Clint’s while he took the bobby pin from his mouth, pried it apart with the tip of his thumb and slid it through her hair close to her scalp so that it had enough hold. Lila Barton was a lucky little girl to have a father who had hairdressing and make-up artistry skills. She’d never had a bad hair day at school due to her mother being ill and her father being left in charge, unlike a few of her classmates._

_“I’m not talking about logic, because being logical can hurt like a bitch- you know that Nat,” Clint replied with a frown. “What I’m saying is that the right thing to do will come from what you feel in your heart.”_

_“Why are we being all wishy-washy today?” Natasha enquired as she brushed Clint’s hand away and turned her head from side to side to examine her hair. “I need to do my roots.”_

_“Why not just strip the colour? He likes strong true hues anyway,” Clint retorted. Natasha glared at the dusky blond man next to her._

_“You don’t even know what you’re saying when you say that,” Natasha muttered acerbically as she shook her head and glanced down into her handbag to locate her lip balm._

_“I know that I’m tired of pretending I don’t know what this is about,” Clint said as he tugged the ends of her locks and then laid a gentle chop to the middle of her back indicating the length of her tresses. “I know that you don’t like to kick puppies and yet you keep kicking the one that follows you around away.”_

_“Auntie Nat! You kicked a **puppy**?” Lila Barton exclaimed shrilly as she stepped out from the sitting room. _

_“No, Lila, sweetie. I have never kicked a puppy and I will never kick a puppy ever. I promise,” Natasha soothed as her eyes shifted between soft reassurance for the little girl and hardened annoyance for her father._

_“What are you doing in here, munchkin?” Clint asked. He swept up his daughter and kissed the top of her head. “Auntie Nat and I are talking about grownup stuff, so I need ya ta scram.”_

_“But you said that a puppy was kicked!” Lila protested as her father set her down and ushered her out._

_“It was a metaphor and you still have a couple of grades to pass before you learn what one of those is,” Clint informed her. “Now out. You’re supposed to be mucking out the stables. If you want a pony, then you have to look after it. Or do you want no allowance this week?”_

_“Fine,” Lila sulked. “See you later, Auntie Nat. Please don’t kick any puppies. Or kittens. But you can kick a big dog if it’s going to maul you, or a lion or a puma or a jaguar.”_

_“I’ll remember that,” Natasha laughed._

_“But seriously, Nat,” Clint began again after he heard the back door closing, “you don’t need to be like this. Joining S.H.I.E.L.D. and then the Avengers was so neither of us would have to forget about wanting to live.”_

_“I think I’m living a pretty good life,” Natasha surmised._

_“That’s not what I’m referring to,” Clint huffed. “Fine, you want me to be blunt, I’ll be blunt. What the hell are you doing, Nat? It’s been a year since Bruce left and he hasn’t bothered to even ask you to wait for him. But we both know he was just a distraction you lost yourself in.”_

_“Clint!” Natasha hissed. “I am not so cruel as to use a good man like Bruce in that that way.”_

_“I’m going to ignore that you interrupted me with bullshit,” Clint scolded. “What are you doing with Steve?”_

_“I am supporting him in his role as team leader of the Avengers,” Natasha replied slowly._

_“Natasha, the man is hopelessly in love with you and struggling to hide that because you keep pretending that he’s just a co-worker and buddy in your worldview,” Clint ranted._

_“He is just-” Natasha argued before she was cut off._

_“Just tell me why? What’s the real reason you’ve pretended every single one of the many dates the man has asked you on were just hang-out sessions,” Clint begged. “Help me understand why you don’t even want to try to be happy with a guy that we both know would do anything for you and whom you obviously adore.”_

_“Clint, I am literally about to get on a plane so I can go attend the funeral of the love of Steve’s life. Can you be any crasser?” Natasha yelled. “He is not in love with me.”_

_“Bullshit! Radioactive flying alien whale-bullshit!” Clint shouted. Natasha stared at him for a terse moment before she slowly turned and began to apply the lip balm she had fished out of her bag. She packed away methodically and glanced up in the mirror again to catch her own gaze and mentally commanded her tear ducts not to produce any moisture._

_“Nat,” Clint sighed. “I just want you to be happy and I can tell that you’re frustrated because everything is going the way you want it to, but not how you desire it to. It’s also not going the way you_ need _it to go.”_

_“Curse,” Natasha mumbled in Russian._

_“What’s that?” Clint asked genuinely, tilting his head to hear her better. Natasha knew it was rude of her to murmur so low and speak with such slurring when she wasn’t even facing her hearing-impaired best friend. She knew he probably wouldn’t be able to read her lips anyway, because she’d barely moved her mouth._

_“Curse,” Natasha managed to enunciate clearly in English as she turned to him. She looked Clint in the eye and then turned her body so that she could lean back against the wall next to the hallway mirror._

_“A ‘curse’?” Clint clarified. He scowled at her and accused: “You and I both know you’re not particularly superstitious.”_

_“Explain that to every man I ever tried to love who ended up paying for my affections with his life,” Natasha responded. “There’s no voodoo spell orchestrated by some bored sorceress somewhere, but I’ve lived long enough to recognise that the Universe doesn’t think I’m good for anyone. I bring them trouble because of what I am. It was decided the first time I felt proud of myself for taking one of my comrades out in training for the Red Room and was lauded for it.”_

_“Natasha, what the Red Room made you do is not your fault,” Clint reassured her. He reached for Natasha and wrapped her up into a comforting hug._

_“But what they made me is,” Natasha whispered. “I gave them what they needed to make me dangerous. I’m not good for Steve.”_

_“You’re wrong,” Clint whispered back._

_“I don’t trust myself to be anything other than his friend, Clint,” Natasha explained as she lifted her head to look up at him. “I promised myself a long time ago that I’d always have his back. I’ll always be there when he needs me. I can do that.”_

_“You both need for you to let him love you,” Clint told her. He kissed her forehead softly._

_“I can’t betray him like that,” Natasha replied solemnly. Clint frowned down at her and opened his mouth to question her further, but Natasha stopped him with her exhausted expression. “I’m what he asked me to be: a friend. That’s the right thing for me to be.”_

 

 

Monday, 9 May 2016

“Nat, talk to me,” Steve instructed gently. His right hand was cradling her head, providing a barrier to protect her from the flat firmness of the wall, and his left hand was grasping her right hand as he held it between their bodies.

 

Natasha focused on the green flecked blue gaze directly in front of her and smiled weakly.

 

“I’m fine. Energy’s just a little low,” Natasha excused. Steve’s eyes narrowed in concern and his lips pursed together. Natasha’s smile morphed into a casual grin and she pushed off the wall to stand up right. “Does it count if you carry me over a threshold on the way out?”

 

Steve’s mouth twitched in amusement and a faint blush coloured his cheeks.

 

“Do I need to order a stretcher, or what?” Nick Fury drawled from the porch as he scrutinised the pair.

 

“Am I bleeding profusely?” Natasha challenged. Nick smirked at her and shook his head. “So there you have it: no.”

 

“Maybe I should carry you,” Steve wondered aloud. Natasha scoffed and pulled him forward to the door.

 

“You need better excuses for your attempts to feel me up, Rogers,” she chuckled. Steve uttered a small grunt conveying his long-suffering resignation and followed the scarlet-haired woman out of the farmhouse.

 

“Whoa- someone upgraded,” Natasha commented when she observed the craft that Fury had arrived in. “That is light years better than a quinjet.”

 

A midsized sleek aircraft stood on the lawn in front of the house. The curved form and LED light lined facets were reminiscent of the future concept vehicles at international car shows. The hull was gunmetal grey and painted with a matt coating. The nose of the craft was mostly see-through with a very large windshield taking up the majority of the area.

 

“Well, it has more advanced capabilities than a quinjet,” Fury replied drolly. “Like I’d roll with standard issue gear.”

 

“Of course not,” Natasha chuckled as she searched for the familiar dark brown hair and blue eyes of Maria Hill and found a sun-kissed tan complexion, brown eyes and golden blonde tresses.

 

Sharon Fucking Carter!

 

Natasha’s fingernails clawed into the back of Steve’s hand and the man flinched. He turned his head to assess her and followed her vicious glare to find the last person he was expecting to accompany Nick Fury watching them impassively from the cockpit of the fancy mini-jet that their rescuer was flying around in. Natasha knew Steve was conscious of the heated glare she darted at him. The incremental lowering of his head was proof of that.

 

The pair continued in silence towards the vehicle as Nick surreptitiously observed them. Natasha felt the urge to fling Steve’s hand away and kick him in the shin, but she held onto him firmly.

 

“We have to fetch our stuff from the Jeep,” Natasha announced, not bothering to greet Agent 13. “We’re parked off the main road four point six clicks north east from here.”

 

Natasha chose to seat herself on the port side of the craft and Steve followed her in robotic unison. The redheaded assassin leaned over to her companion, glaring past his nervous profile at the woman who was watching them disinterestedly before she focused on the man next to her. Agent 13 began their aircraft’s ascent into the air.

 

“If you so much as move your eyes more than thirty degrees to the right, I will pull out your fingernails and stick them into your eyeballs,” Natasha growled in a barely audible voice as she whispered against Steve’s earlobe. A shiver ran through him before he could collect himself enough to attempt glaring admonishingly at Natasha. The scowl she returned would probably have petrified Medusa. Steve’s gaze dipped briefly to her lips, and Natasha was torn between wanting to head-butt him and wanting to launch her mouth at his.

 

“So, fill us in,” Steve deflected, choosing to focus on Fury, who sat opposite them.

 

“Do you really want to start on that when we’ll be landing again to pick up your ‘luggage’ in a few seconds?” Fury dismissed.

 

“We need what we brought,” Natasha bit out. “It’s vital.”

 

“So you brought along an unknown mystical device that changes the past and is capable of protecting the Earth from any and every kind of foe for all eternity?” Nick replied sarcastically. His expression hardened. “I’m taking a chance on your zombie-asses in the hope that y’all won’t go all horror movie and bite the rest of us. You appear to have regular vital signs. Hopefully, you ain’t sleeper agents working for the enemy. So you’ll understand if I want to wait until we’re in a more secure location before any kind of debriefing.”

 

“Then I hope you have something to keep us awake,” Natasha shot back. She squeezed Steve’s hand back when he squeezed hers. The thought of falling asleep and potentially losing each other was terrifying. “We need to stay aware. We have our reasons- they’re pertinent.”

 

“So you’re requesting super-coffee and a porter service?” Nick asked sardonically.  

 

“Well the things we brought along are important clues for a personal matter and Steve and I cannot afford to lose the data,” Natasha replied stubbornly. She exchanged a glance with Steve and he gave her a little nod.

 

“Very well,” Nick conceded. “Is that it?” He pointed out towards the nose of the craft and Steve began to turn but froze suddenly and twisted back to face straight ahead. His eyes flicked to Natasha and she smirked at him. She was pleased he took her request (threat) to heart.

 

“Yeah, that copse a hundred feet away,” Natasha directed. They landed on the road and Natasha looked expectantly at Steve who immediately jumped up to fetch their gear. Agent 13 let down the ramp and Steve scurried out admirably, despite the fatigue he must have been feeling.

 

Natasha turned to watch Steve through the windshield as he loaded up with their bags. Sharon Carter busied herself with checking her instrument panel and pressing buttons and flipping switches. The brown-eyed agent’s hair was up in a long sleek ponytail which curled at the end. Her winged eyeliner flicked out perfectly and her contouring technique was immaculate. Natasha knew how ruffled she looked- she had seen her reflection in the hallway mirror before they had left the Barton farmhouse.

 

Still, an acidic fire burning in her gut wouldn’t let her lose out to Sharon Fucking Carter again. Even if this world was the hallucination that she’d first thought it to be, Natasha Romanov was not going to give up any of what she found out was hers in Natalia Rogers’ life. She definitely wasn’t going to let go before she had her head screwed on straight. She’d passed too many things over to Sharon Carter, and frankly the woman sucked at protecting Steve.

 

Natalia Romanova would always do better- she was simply made that way.  

 

@>-`-,----

 

_Stalingrad, Friday, 25 December 1942_

_The Westerners called this day Christmas. The Ancient Romans rearranged their calendar so that they could interpellate the polytheistic populace and indoctrinate them into their modified ideology that had shifted to a monotheistic core. The twenty fifth of December was an important date in the Western Capitalist year. Capitalists who were doing their best to ignore the bloodshed across the globe probably gave each other gifts and sang songs about a baby being born in a barn. It was just another day during the war to Natalia Romanova. The only gift she got that morning was the fact that she was still alive._

_The Germans were eating their horses and the Soviet tanks and artillery were bombarding the enemy steadily. Captain America and his Howling Commandoes had left Stalingrad to fulfil other official missions. Natalia’s adoptive father, Major Ivan Petrovich Bezukhov was railing into a handful of Privates under his command while those men knelt in the rubble in front of his ramshackle tent. Natalia lay on her cot in the darkness and ignored Ivan Petrovich’s snarling outside and the tingling sensation in her hands._

_She racked her mind trying to remember if she’d ever heard any of those men chant it, the poem that Ivan Petrovich had translated for Captain Rogers and his comrades when they asked what it meant. She could almost hear Ivan’s rumbling voice as he recited the verses penned by Simanov which had become a mantra chanted before battle for many of the men. She wasn’t too sure about the English version yet, but she knew the original Russian by heart after hearing it repeated so many times._

_The fourteen year old girl silently mouthed the words in her home language as she stared up at the tent ceiling:_

‘Wait for me, and I'll come back!  
Wait with all you've got!  
Wait, when dreary yellow rains  
Tell you, you should not.  
Wait when snow is falling fast,  
Wait when summer's hot,  
Wait when yesterdays are past,  
Others are forgot.  
Wait, when from that far-off place,  
Letters don't arrive.  
Wait, when those with whom you wait   
Doubt if I'm alive.’

_“My daughter! My daughter, you dare-” Ivan Petrovich bellowed. His voice startled Natalia from the trance she’d lulled herself into momentarily. The young girl listened for a few more seconds before she threw herself back into her recitation._

‘Wait for me, and I'll come back!  
Wait in patience yet  
When they tell you off by heart  
That you should forget.  
Even when my dearest ones  
Say that I am lost,  
Even when my friends give up,  
Sit and count the cost,  
Drink a glass of bitter wine  
To the fallen friend -  
Wait! And do not drink with them!  
Wait until the end!’

_Natalia lifted her hands up to the ceiling to examine them. They were clean and scratch-free. Her trainers would have been proud of her technique. The soldier who had jumped her didn’t stand a chance. She wondered if he had someone to wait for him, who would never see his return. She sucked in a shuddering breath and exhaled smoothly._

‘Wait for me and I'll come back,   
Dodging every fate!   
"What a bit of luck!" they'll say,   
Those that would not wait.   
They will never understand   
How amidst the strife,   
By your waiting for me, dear,   
You had saved my life.   
Only you and I will know   
How you got me through.   
Simply - you knew how to wait -   
No one else but you.’

_Natalia blinked rapidly in the darkness and alchemised the vulnerability she felt into anger. She had kept her head down, covered her hair and worn shapeless clothes. Her body was still as featureless as a pre-pubescent boy’s! Yet she heard the soldiers gossip about how she didn’t look at all like their Major and about how she must be his whore mistress masquerading as his daughter. They hadn’t even officially broken her hymen yet back in training. Madame had said that her hips had to reach a certain circumference otherwise she would be needlessly damaged and therefore useless. What good was a seductress with a loose, mangled slit?_

_How could those morons out there cling to such a whimsical piece of writing, and then turn around to call a girl who hadn’t properly gotten her monthly blood yet a whore? Madame had warned them that war was the smelting pot where monsters were forged._

_“I’ll kill you myself!” Ivan raged. Natalia raised herself to her elbows to watch through the half-open tent flap. One of the four men on their knees looked petrified. Two looked surly. The one that Ivan was strangling glared up at the older man venomously. All four of the men only just fulfilled the definition by age._

_When Ivan had translated the poem for the Howling Commandoes audience, Bucky Barnes had nudged Captain Steve Rogers with his shoulder. Bucky Barnes had murmured ‘Peggy’, and Steve Rogers had blushed. Thinking back on the incident, Natalia found fury bubbling up in her. It was completely unfair that other girls had someone to think of them wistfully when they heard that poem and yet she had to walk around anticipating attack from the people who were supposed to protect her. There was never any respite. She was glad that she had snapped that hazel-eyed boy’s neck in the wee hours of that morning. She only wished that she had flayed him and hung him up by his toes as a public example to the other cretins who couldn’t be decent to their fellow countrywomen._

_The loud pop of gunfire cut through the air and every muscle in Natalia’s body leapt into alertness. From her viewpoint she could see that Ivan Petrovich still had the neck of the defiant Private in his hands, but the young man was missing a chunk of his skull. The surly youth who had been kneeling next to him, and who had brains and blood splattered on his face opened his mouth to shriek. He had a piece of bone lodged in his cheek, so Natalia could understand the need to exercise his vocal chords. Three more shots fired and the youth was on the floor, as were the other two Privates. Ivan Petrovich had turned around to face the source of gunfire, and his face had paled. Natalia had armed herself with Ivan’s spare pistols and taken cover behind a trunk._

_“Y-y-you!” Ivan stuttered as his eyes followed an approaching figure._

_“Yes, me,” a familiar voice drawled before calling into the tent: “Stand down, Spiderling!”_

_Natalia held her position, until the identity of the voice could be confirmed visually. The tent flap swirled aside and a petite figure entered the tent, followed closely by two other similar forms._

_“Good girl,” Madame B crooned at Natalia. She’d located the redheaded girl immediately and smirked in approval. Behind her, two upperclassmen in the Black Widow program- Sveta and Galina- stood to attention. Madame B nodded at Galina and the brunette girl began to secure the tent with alacrity while Sveta stood guard at the tent flap. “I’m glad to see that you’ve protected Mother Russia’s assets and found a way to exercise your skills while doing so.”_

_The blonde woman with severe features standing across the tent from Natalia had been the daughter of a Frenchman who had married a Russian woman when he had joined his Marxist brothers in their efforts to liberate the Russian people’s minds from the hegemony of the Tsar’s rule. Madame B had fought in the revolution as a girl and in her youth she had been the top female espionage agent of the new regime. She was every girl in the Black Widow program’s idol and worst nightmare rolled into one._

_“Stand,” Madame B instructed. Natalia swiftly complied. “Have you kept up with your training?”_

_“Yes, Madame B,” Natalia barked._

_“Who has been your sparring partner then?” Madame B enquired with a deceptive purr._

_“The landscape, Madame. I fight any piece of useful stone when the soldiers are asleep, Madame!” Natalia expounded._

_“Well at least we know you’re still hardened then,” Madame B concluded._

_“I am here to collect you, Natalia Alianova. My Spiderlings have been wasted sitting at home with their families and I’ve finally managed to make someone who has a brain and has control over army orders realise this,” Madame B explained as she took a seat on Ivan’s chair and put her feet up on his desk. The greying man hovered uncertainly a few feet from the tent watching the proceedings. “You are to fall under my command along with your Sister-Spiderlings and we shall be making use of your weapons skills to aid the Red Army. The Red Army is currently in need of every capable sniper it has.”_

_Natalia didn’t like that Galina had gotten behind her in her examination of the tent, but she didn’t let it show. Instead she kept her focus on Madame and hoped that the older girl would not ambush her. Galina looked as though she had been privy to better rations than what Ivan Petrovich’s unit had access to. She looked strong._

_“But before we go, my little tsarina,” Madame B encouraged, “Tell me all about these Americans who sought to retrieve you from that inept mystic cult, the Hand. Tell me about their Captain America.”_

_Natalia was mortified to realise that she had begun to blush._

_“Oh ho ho, little girl!” Madame B guffawed after scrutinising Natalia closely. “What did I tell you about the charm of Americans? It’s very effective, no?”_

_Natasha couldn’t help thinking about Steve Rogers’ dazzling smile and his careful manners._

_“Yes, Madame. Their manners are placating and easily entice the unaware,” Natalia answered._

_“You were taken in silly girl, weren’t you?” Madame B chided mildly. “If we live through this bullshit, then I shall have a befitting punishment waiting for you back home. And then we can use your acquired knowledge appropriately. I think I have a wonderful plan for your future. I always knew you’d be useful. I see that you’re like me- that’s why I’m so hard on you.”_

_Madame B’s version of being hard on a Red Room student was to be nice to them. That made the other girls hate the singled out student and she was attacked with more vigour than was usual in their training and tests. Madame B was exceedingly nice to Natalia._

_“Come along, Natalia Alianova,” Madame B ordered. “Get your gear and meet me outside.”_

_The blonde woman stood up and strode out into the early morning air. Natalia glanced at Galina and Sveta, expecting seething gazes directed at her. For once, she saw pity in their eyes. Natalia deduced that she must have looked a fright. She hadn’t cleaned up after the scuffle with the hazel-eyed boy. But then again, they could have been privy to what Madame had in store for her._

_Natalia quickly gathered her weapons and necessary clothes. She hesitated for a second over bringing the handkerchief that Steve Rogers had tied over a cut on her bicep in their escape from the Hand. She’d washed the blood out of it. The square patch of cotton had his initials embroidered on it in symbols from the western alphabet. The stitching was meticulous and done in green thread. Natalia wanted to leave it with Ivan Petrovich, but she knew that Madame B would be irked if she found out that Natalia had left such a useful memento behind. Natalia tucked it into her pack and rushed through the tent flap with Sveta and Galina following close behind her._

_“Natalia,” Ivan Petrovich gasped as he looked her with eyes full of regret. He stumbled over to the young girl and hesitantly reached out to her arm. Natalia was embarrassed when he pulled her into a hug in front of her fellow Red Room initiates._

_“I’m so sorry,” he whispered gruffly in her hair. “This is a hard life that I’ve given you. You make Mother Russia proud and you make me proud, but if I could, I wouldn’t ask so much of you. We must heed our duty to build our nation, but know that you’ll always have me supporting you. You may not be my blood, but you are my daughter.”_

_Natalia withdrew from his embrace and gave him a clipped nod._

_“Thank you, Ivan Petrovich. I appreciate your efforts and am honoured to serve Mother Russia,” Natalia replied stiffly. She was going to miss Ivan and his warm silence. He may have been trained to kill, but the man was not cold at all. His only faults were his blind patriotism and his inability to believe he could raise a little orphan girl on his own._

_Natalia flashed Ivan a small smile and joined Madame B on the other side of the small clearing in the rubble where the blonde instructress waited with seven other Red Room students._

_“Keep cultivating that loyalty,” Madame B commanded with a pat on Natalia’s shoulder. “It’s always a good idea to keep sympathetic contacts. You never know when they will be useful.”_

_Natalia followed Madame B and her fellow students out of the camp without looking back. Over the next few decades, Natalia wished often that she had been able to stay with Ivan Petrovich. Especially once she had heard that Captain America had crashed his plane saving the world and that there had been no wreckage found._

@>-`-,----

 

“Do we get any clues as to where we’re going?” Natasha nudged as she watched Steve show Nick Fury the contents of their luggage. Nick rolled his eyes at the photo albums, and then paused before looking up at Natasha thoughtfully. He took another minute before answering while Steve stowed their bags and buckled in next to Natasha, trying valiantly to look anywhere but at the cockpit of the aircraft.

 

“Up,” Fury answered simply.

 

Natasha frowned at him before she realised the implication in his single-word reply. Agent 13 had taken off again.

 

“Typical,” Natasha muttered as she unfolded her arms to take hold of Steve’s hand again.

 

“What?” Steve asked. The Earth below them was quickly getting farther and farther away.

 

“Nick Fury would have a secret hideout in space,” Natasha griped as they left Earth’s atmosphere.

    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope that was okay. A lot of flashback, but I felt it was time.
> 
> A reader comment prompted Sharon’s reappearance in this chapter. She was always going to return, but I had planned for it to be a little later. But with Nick’s early appearance, things had to be shuffled around.
> 
> The second flashback was so not canon. I just made that all up linking history and bits of Marvel elements, so…
> 
> The poem is ‘Wait for Me’ by Konstantin Simanov, who wrote it for his sweetheart in 1941 before he went off to war. It became very popular among the Red Army's troops.


	8. High-Stakes Gambling

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was difficult, but I finally managed to get it out. There is a trigger WARNING!!!! for another Red Room flashback. Everything about the Red Room is child abuse, as you know. I don’t describe the acts in detail, but I do allude to them in the messed up training instructions Natalia receives and the conversation she has to endure. I know some people may find it hard to read, but I think it’s important for your understanding of Natasha and her motivations.

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Eight

 

High-Stakes Gambling

 

All of Natasha’s Soviet space training was for naught. Every minute spent in a human centrifuge had been wasted. Tumultuous flights conducted to simulate zero-gravity had been worthless. She hadn’t needed one second of any of that preparation, because it was only natural that the _only_ time she actually went to _space_ was to travel to Nick Fury’s little hideaway above the sky. The ride there was ridiculously smooth- better than the best elevators. Sharon Fucking Carter did not mess up a single moment of the entire flight or the docking. And there was artificial gravity on the craft they travelled in and on the dark mass of a space station hovering just over the North Pole.  

 

The station’s hull was all black and faded into the vast inkiness of outer space. What was unusual about the coating of the craft though was that instead of reflecting light, the surface seemed to absorb it. Natasha wondered who had developed that feature. Nick had explained that the station remained in in the same place over the planet, and did not orbit around and around. That must have required genius or appropriated-alien technology to engineer. As they had approached from below Natasha had noted the square shape of the underside, but once they had gotten closer she had seen that the station was not a cube with equal sides. The height of the cube was shallow and appeared to consist of only a few levels. All in all, it looked like a staunchly minimalist house floating around above the Earth and reminded her vaguely of the monolith in ‘2001: Space Odyssey’.

 

“Welcome to ‘The Monolith’,” Nick said casually as he stepped out beside Natasha and Steve into the docking bay. Natasha paused a moment to analyse whether Fury was being sarcastic.

 

“Are you serious? ‘ _The Monolith_ ’?” Steve asked disbelievingly.

 

“Have you suddenly developed telepathic abilities? Are you using your new talents to mess with us or something?” Natasha probed. She wondered (to hopefully just herself)if everyone in this elsewhere was a telepath with the exception of her and Steve.

 

“Haven’t been hit by any special rays after injecting an experimental serum lately, so I don’t think I have any new talents,” Fury mused, before turning to them to deliver an unimpressed look at the pair. The bald man scrutinised them slowly as Agent 13 finished up in her docking procedures and joined them. “Unlike you two, who have popped up like daisies once more. I honestly did not expect that from the Original Super-Soldier Serum or the Red Room variant.”

 

“So you really named your space station ‘The Monolith’?” Steve clarified.

 

“I do have a sense of humour on occasion,” Nick replied as he led them out of the docking area and into a wide sparse corridor. Agent 13 took up the rear.

 

“I guess this is the level we should be at in our off-world accommodations, what we would achieve _if_ we weren’t too busy fighting each other or repressing each other,” Natasha postulated.

 

“So why space?” Steve enquired directly as they continued to follow Nick further into the space station.

 

“You do remember that you’re yet to be debriefed,” Nick replied as he turned back to face the pair with a frown on his face.

 

“We’re kind of trying to not pass out from fatigue,” Steve responded. “Waiting is boring.”

 

Nick scoffed and explained: “Most adversaries who would seek me out would look for me on Earth. Also, my current mode of transport is quicker than any earthbound options.”

 

Nick turned to a door on his left, which opened silently. Natasha noted that it would be easier to sneak around this place than it would to do the same on the fictional Starship Enterprise. The room that the door opened into could have been decorated by the same person who had designed the ship they had arrived at the station on, which added to the feeling that they had arrived on the set of some science fiction movie. The flat ceiling was an overall light source, but there was also a crystal chandelier suspended over a glass table, which must have just been Nick’s personal preference. There was a comfortable-looking, linear sofa set to one side of the room that made the best of the view of the planet below that the ribbon windows afforded.

 

“So you’re going to debrief us over tea or what?” Natasha commented as she took in the surroundings that were decidedly different from any interrogation room she’d ever been in.

 

“Yes,” Nick stated as he held her gaze nonchalantly. “If you attempted to overpower or kill me or Agent 13, you wouldn’t be able to escape or commandeer the station. You have no clearance, and by the time you could have hacked the system all the air in whichever compartment you were in would have been sucked out. This is space, Rogers. You’re human. You’ll die.”

 

Natasha concluded that this version of herself must have changed her last name, and insisted that everyone used her married name if Nick Fury was referring to _her_ as ‘Rogers’.

 

“Have a seat,” Nick suggested as he gestured to two places opposite the chair that he stood behind at the glass table. Natasha and Steve sat down and watched Nick do the same while he gestured to Agent 13. The sleek blonde walked over to a white side cabinet and returned with a tray laden with bottled water, a kettle, a tea pot, tea cups and a tea canister. Natasha couldn’t help cataloguing all the various poisons that could be hidden in tea. Agent 13 returned a second time to the table with a sealed poison detection kit, two vials of clear fluid and a Stark Industries portable mini-microscope. “I’ll let you brew the tea. It’s Darjeeling.”

 

“The two vials are Compound AA,” Agent 13 told them. It was the first words she’d spoken, and her tone was far more detached than the Sharon Carter they knew usually used. Compound AA was familiar to Natasha and Steve- it was the codename for the old S.H.I.E.L.D.-developed drug used in the field to ensure that agents could stay awake for a few hours longer than they would naturally be able to. It was the only one of that type of drug that worked safely on Natasha and Steve.   

 

Natasha quietly set about testing the materials in front of her. The redhead scrutinised each component methodically. She wiped the tea things with wipes from her own utility belt, ensuring that they were not coated in any poisons. Then she tested the water, sugar, milk and tea leaves. Nick tapped on the table and a bright red circle glowed on the surface.

 

“Heating element,” he explained. That was advanced technology that Tony Stark would have probably loved to sell to the masses. Natasha nodded and put the kettle on. While they waited for the water to boil she analysed the vials of Compound AA and once they had both been approved, she handed one to Steve. He knocked it back in one gulp while she slowly sipped hers. The kettle eventually whistled and Natasha continued to brew the tea.

 

“While this is all fine and dandy,” Steve spoke up, “Nat and I do have some pressing questions.”

 

Fury nodded. “As do I.”

 

“Firstly,” Steve begun, ignoring Fury’s reply, “we would like to know the whereabouts of our son and his status. Secondly, what’s the word on Laura and the Barton children? Thirdly, where’s the rest of the team? Fourthly, who’s the enemy and what the hell is going on?”

 

Natasha approved of all the questions except the last- Steve could have found that out using a more surreptitious technique- but she kept herself from divulging her disapproval in front of their hosts. She busied herself with pouring out the tea, and internally debating whether she should make a cup for Agent 13. The woman was standing to their right, blocking the exit. Natasha was pleased with the fact that Steve was still sticking to the ‘no looking at Sharon Carter’ rule she had announced. She hadn’t even given him a reason for it. Perhaps Steve had an inkling of how much the sight of him next to that woman irked her.

 

“I can’t give you definite answers to the first two questions,” Fury replied. “Your son was in Avengers Support Staff custody until the skirmish between our forces and the enemy ended. He was reportedly taken by Tony Stark who has gone off grid. The vehicle that Laura Barton and her children were travelling in was tracked going west before we lost all the satellites in the vicinity. We’re still working on getting satellite feed back up.”

 

Natasha had handed out the tea cups and saucers, including one for Sharon Carter, who eyed the silver hued cup before she carefully picked it up. Natasha observed Agent 13 clandestinely drop a pill fished from her utility belt into her tea before she stirred it and took a sip. It seemed as though the blonde had noticed her glaring and acted accordingly. Sharon Carter was wise not to trust her. Natasha could have very easily poisoned her with something agonising.

 

“As you know, Barton and Wilson have fallen,” Fury recounted. He paused to inhale deeply before continuing. “Support Staff had retreated at the last report. That was four and a half hours ago. Our recon efforts confirmed their safety two hours ago.”

 

“What about Hill?” Steve questioned. “Coulson? And Vision? Is Rhodey with Tony?”

 

“Steven, just shut up and let me handle this,” Natasha groaned. He was giving away data like he was a broken piñata and info was candy. Steve huffed and sat back in his chair to sip at the ridiculously sweet tea she had made for him. If Steve wasn’t enhanced he’d be a diabetic with rotting teeth with the way he indulged in sugar.

 

“We would like to find out the status of Hill, Coulson and Rhodes,” Natasha asked resolutely, careful to leave Vision out of the request. “And we’re still waiting on the identity of our enemy.”

 

“So are we. We were hoping you knew who we were facing, since you actually participated in the battle,” Fury answered pointedly.

 

“So none of us know who we’re fighting,” Natasha confirmed.

 

“We have footage of large leaf like ships that materialised out of thin air over most of the major cities on the planet. Homogenous troops lacking facial features poured out of them and started attacking. Most planetary communications went down. Even telegraphs are being disrupted,” Fury told them. “And then they disappeared again. We can’t detect them any longer.”   

 

“Where’re Maria, Phil and Rhodey?” Steve interrupted before Natasha could continue her line of questioning. “We’ve already lost Sam and Clint. We need to know.”

 

“Hill is understandably indisposed at this moment. Coulson is running operations planet-side,” Fury informed them. Natasha was relieved at the news that Coulson still lived in this elsewhere. “Rhodes is not even an Avenger so I have no fucking clue where he is so hopefully he’s hunkered down somewhere safe and not one of the corpses left lying around on the highways the enemy decimated while attacking the civilians that were evacuated.”

 

“They killed the evacuees?” Steve gasped hoarsely. Natasha tensed up next to him. If the enemy was attacking the civilians who had evacuated, then there was a chance that Laura and kids may have been caught up in something. Steve’s hand grasped Natasha’s knee under the table. She glanced down at where he touched her, understanding the comfort and support offered and sought. So much of this life was different from what they knew. Natasha numbed her emotions and returned to the conversation.

 

“Who’s ‘Vision’?” Fury asked bluntly. “Things about you two are off and I demand an explanation. You both have eidetic memory and cannot remember the enemy? You better have a good answer or you’ll be christening the brig.”

 

Natasha clapped her hand over Steve’s mouth before he could reply. “You’ll tell it in way too rambling a manner.”

 

“I am a soldier. I know how to report,” Steve hissed at her after prying her hand from his face.

 

“We don’t know what’s going on because we don’t remember what’s going on,” Natasha told Fury before Steve could intervene.

 

“You have short-term amnesia?” Fury probed.

 

“Is it short-term if it’s the past two years?” Steve retorted. Natasha suppressed a grunt- and the urge to punch Steve’s thigh.

 

“How do you know that you have a son then? The child is only a year old,” Fury interrogated.

 

“If either of you would let me finish,” Natasha chided, “I could paint a broader picture. Steve and I cannot remember the events of the past two years. Instead, we remember a different set of memories.”

 

“So you suspect that your memories have been wiped and that you’ve had new memories transplanted,” Fury conjectured.

 

“No, it’s difficult to explain, but everything I remember I definitely experienced. The detail is too intricate, the experience of the memories accordingly differentiated in intensity,” Natasha expounded.

 

“You realise that there are powerful mutants out there capable of such feats, Rogers?” Fury smirked at Natasha. How did the man distinguish between her and Steve? Natasha resolved on convincing Fury to resume addressing her by her maiden name in professional settings.   

 

“What are ‘Mutants’?” Steve asked innocently. Fury regarded him with confusion.

 

“Two years of memory loss and replacement should not have erased your general knowledge, Captain,” Fury said slowly. ‘Captain’ seemed to be what he called Steve.

 

Natasha sighed and twisted to face Steve. She ran her hand over her frizzy hair as she thought of how to explain what she gathered Fury was talking about. “Steve, remember I told you about natural telepaths?”

 

“Yup,” Steve nodded slowly. He was frowning and his eyes were narrowed.

 

“And remember I told you about how my old employers gathered these individuals and made use of them by taking advantage of their talents?”

 

“Yes,” Steve answered.

 

“Well, these individuals were often very powerful. And their powers weren’t limited to cognitive abilities. Like Pietro Maximoff,” Natasha told him gently.

 

“Wanda and Pietro were enhanced. They’d been subjected to testing and experimentation,” Steve argued.

 

“Experimentation that was engineered to trigger their natural mutations,” Natasha reasoned. She took Steve’s hand in hers before she continued to speak. “There are genetic mutations in humans that have resulted in unusual abilities, and sometimes irregular appearances. You remember James Logan? His name has changed several times over the decades, but he’s stayed the same. That person you thought looked like him on that mission in Oslo last year was actually him. But he has no serum in his veins. The serum we received does what his body does naturally.”

 

“Huh?” Steve breathed.

 

“Governments have done a better job of keeping the existence of ‘Mutants’ a secret than they have keeping aliens under wraps,” Natasha shrugged with a smile. “I’ve never heard them called ‘Mutants’ but I guess that’s an apt name.”

 

“What you two are talking about makes you sound like you come from a whole different world,” Nick theorised.

 

“We have strong suspicions that we somehow are,” Steve replied, breaking eye contact with Natasha and turning to face the bald man head on. Fury exchanged a glance with Agent 13 but neither of them made any other moves. Steve rolled his lips between his teeth and spoke again: “So Wanda… and Pietro are _Mutants_.”

 

“And they are?” Fury enquired.

 

“Wanda Maximoff’s a telepath with tele-coercive and telekinetic abilities. She can also manipulate probability,” Natasha reported. “Pietro Maximoff, her twin brother, is extremely fast.”

 

“We’ll look them up in our Mutant database,” Fury informed them. “There’s a lot of factionalism in the Mutant community and some Mutants are vehemently secretive.”

 

Natasha nodded her acknowledgement. At his prompting, Natasha quickly filled Fury in on the events that she and Steve had been through since they had woken up on the battlefield that afternoon.

 

“Is this ‘Vision’ from your memory an enhanced human or a Mutant?” Fury asked after a few moments of silence.

 

“Neither,” Natasha answered. “And he might not even exist in this place.” Natasha and Steve sat in solemn silence absorbing how different the reality they had woken up to was.

 

“You said that Hill was indisposed?” Steve asked meekly. “How so? Is she hurt?”

 

“Well her fiancé’s corpse is currently floating in a pond in Central Park,” Nick sighed. Natasha and Steve tensed. In this elsewhere, Sam and Maria were engaged. Back in their world, the relationship hadn’t progressed past a few flirtatious exchanges due to Sam accompanying Steve on his quest to find Bucky. Natasha could tell Steve had more questions, but was holding back. She understood how he must have felt. There’d been too many revelations that day.

 

“What can we do to help find our son?” Steve rasped, swiftly changing the subject.

 

“Rest up because whatever situation the boy’s in, you’ll be of no use to him if you’re likely to collapse from exhaustion,” Nick told them. “Coulson’s searching for Stark and so are we. And don’t worry, Stark’s not that bad with babies.”

 

@>-`-,----

 

Telling Natasha and Steve not to worry about the son they did not know was a sure fire way to make the two Avengers’ anxiety increase exponentially. Natasha and Steve proposed numerous suggestions on how they could help, but were told that Agent 13 would handle it. They were further assured that Agent Hill was on board, though she had confined herself to her assigned quarters, and that as soon as she had gathered herself she would return to duty and aid in the search. Natasha and Steve felt exceedingly guilty about that and insisted on helping to find little James Rogers, but Nick eventually yelled at them informing them that the knowledge they remembered was likely to not be accurate or useful and that they were still considered a security risk even if they were not confined to the brig. Consequently the pair retired to the suite that they had been given.

 

And that was how Natasha came to find herself standing in a towel stuck in the bathroom, having just had a shower, cursing her luck for having only brought sexy pyjamas along with them, wondering what she should do with the rings on her arrow necklace and trying not to think about the missing people she cared about, whether they had been mentioned or not.

 

“Is there a comb and a pair of scissors out there, Steve?” Natasha called through the closed door.

 

“Um, there’s a brush,” Steve replied hesitantly.

 

Natasha opened the door to stick her head out carefully and glared at the blond. “You can’t brush curly hair, Steve. That’s what creates frizz and the curls won’t clump together properly. Brushes are the devil for curly hair. Why didn’t we pack a comb?”

 

“I don’t know?” Steve squeaked. He was fiddling with a white vest in his hands, and had put a pair of blue pyjamas bottoms on. The bruises that they discovered lay under his clothes were fading but his back still looked quite mottled. He hadn’t removed his ring from the chain around his neck. “Why do you need scissors? Please don’t…” Steve gestured a swirl around his head.

 

“What? Cut my hair?” Natasha completed.

 

“It really did look like Peter Pan and this is much… prettier,” Steve blurted. His cheeks had flushed brightly. He apologised with a grimace and a whisper: “Sorry.”

 

Natasha snorted. “My hair’s in good condition and it’s the texture and colour I prefer. But it’s frikkin’ long, Steve. It’ll dip into the toilet when I sit if I were to straighten it. I shouldn’t cut it wet, but this length is cumbersome. I promise to not cut above waist-length if it offends you so much.”

 

“That’s not what I’m trying to say,” Steve protested. He spluttered for a few moments before rubbing his hands over his face and through his damp hair before his gaze landed on something lying on the dressing table. Steve strode over to retrieve a bamboo wood wide-tooth comb that was on the table among other utensils in the vanity set. He joined Natasha at the door of the bathroom and handed over the comb. Natasha ignored his rippling torso, plucked the comb from his hand and let the door slide shut between them.  

 

Natasha stood in front of the mirror combing her long tresses out, starting at the ends. She’d already worked product through and so the tangles came undone easily. After completing that task she sectioned her hair once again, holding it up with clips from her toiletry bag, and began to snip at her locks. Her last curly haircut had been done by Clint years ago. Natasha forced herself to breathe steadily so that she would break down into tears and pushed her mournful thoughts away.

 

The hairdryer in the bathroom did not have a diffuser so Natasha piled her damp hair up on top of her head with a scrunchie. She needed a scarf to wrap her head in so that her curls wouldn’t frizz from friction while she slept. Any scarves she had brought along would have been in her duffel next to the king-sized bed in the middle of their room. They hadn’t informed Fury that the life they remembered did not include them being a couple.

 

Wearing a scarf on one’s head to bed was not a particularly sexy look. Or at least, it wasn’t in comparison to the artfully mussed hairdos that models and actresses sported in modern visual media. Women had been covering their heads at night for centuries to preserve their styles, but a few decades of industriously distributed fantasy had built up unrealistic expectations in the heterosexual male population and those expectations had been absorbed by the women who were interested in those males. Natasha could get away with wearing shorter curls to bed loose, but longer curls was a whole different game. Steve had never seen her as an adult with her hair in curls and wrapped up, but he had seen her looking incredibly sloppy. She decided that since in this elsewhere the other Steve was Natalia Rogers’ husband that her Steve would have to get used to the bedtime hair protection methods that came with her body, especially if he thought her long curly red hair was ‘prettier’.

 

Natasha slipped the silk negligee she had the misfortune of packing over her head and stared at her reflection. Unfortunately the purple colour of the garment matched the bruises that littered her arms, shoulders and back. It was also the most conservative sleepwear garment she had brought with. She would have been furious with Steve if he’d been the one to pack her pyjamas, but he hadn’t. Natasha had packed beautiful silk, lace and marabou fluff all on her own. At least the deep amethyst coloured slip she had donned covered her until mid-thigh, although it had slits on both hips that reached up several inches. The lace on the cups of the garment did not reveal her areolas, but she doubted that would remain the case if she twisted around in her sleep. The outline of her nipples was showing though.

 

Natasha cupped her hands over her silk covered nipples in an effort to make them not stand out so obviously. Her hands weren’t warm enough to have an effect so she clapped them together and rubbed them vigorously. Once her hands began to feel hot from the friction she placed them on her breasts again and stood scowling at her reflection while shaking her head at the irony of the situation. She felt ridiculous for behaving so prudishly.

 

Steve was physically attracted to her. She knew that. She was certain of the fact. And the other Steve had liked Natasha’s form enough to get Natalia Rogers pregnant, and for them to buy bulk boxes of condoms. But that Natalia Rogers had somehow gotten over her past as Natalia Romanova, and the things she was trained and programmed to do. Natasha Romanov wasn’t so fortunate.

 

 

_Siberia, Monday, 1 January 1945_

_“Finally, some progress,” Madame B declared as she clinically cupped and weighed Natalia’s breasts in her hands. It was New Year’s Day and the war was still raging, but for Madame B’s spiderlings in the Red Room it was time for their biannual physical inspection._

_Sixteen year old Natalia Alianova Romanova stood naked in an examination room in the medical laboratory having every millimetre of her body scrutinised by Madame B and their chief medical doctor, Sergei Mikhailovich Kuznetsov. She’d already been slapped for letting a pimple on her temple near her hairline progress to the stage where it would leave a temporary scar. The thing had formed overnight while she slept but there was no explaining that to Madame B._

_“I was afraid we were going to have to alter you surgically like Olga and Katya,” Madame B commented offhandedly. “Keep doing the breast massages and don’t do them unevenly. How is her progress with intercourse, Kuznetsov?”_

_Natalia had achieved the required hip girth for Madame B to declare her ready to begin her sexual training three months prior. Before then she had merely attended the classes with the rest of her age group and watched the demonstrations carried out by seasoned espionage agents on loan to the Red Room. Her sexual training tutor, Vasily Fomich, was strict and twenty years older than her._

_“Vasily Fomich reports that she has been compliant, and a quick study,” Kuznetsov remarked impassively as he made notes in his file. He was thin man with an icy aloof demeanour. Madame B liked the doctor because he was so devoted to his job that he had no other interests. She had no need to worry that he would misuse their government’s assets for his own sexual gratification. Kuznetsov had no libido at all. That did not make him ‘safe’ in the eyes of the Red Room students though. The man was the source of regular pain. He did not bother with pain killers or a gentle manner._

_“But her slow physical development puts her behind the other girls,” Kuznetsov continued. “The war may wrap up very soon and then the bigwigs will notice that that we need to keep a closer eye on the Americans. Natalia Alianova needs be ready for her proposed role when the moment that opportunity appears.”_

_Madame B had been delighted with Natalia’s Stalingrad adventures just over two years before. She had deemed it the best thing to have resulted from the giant fuck up that was the order to disband the Red Room so that the qualified officers assigned to the project could join the fight to protect their country’s sovereignty in light of the Nazi betrayal. Madame B had been muttering for years about the inevitability of the Nazis trying to fuck them over. The invitation to the Axis Pact was an obvious sham in her eyes. Whenever some nut attempted to take over the world, they eventually got the stupid idea to attempt to conquer Russia as well. And it always ended in the Russian winter fucking the invaders up the arse. One had to be born there to bear the cold and thrive._

_But conflict always brings opportunity, and Madame B immediately identified the goldmine that Natalia had inadvertently stumbled upon the moment she had gotten wind of it. Natalia had wrought a connection with a person of particular interest: the darling of the Allied Forces and hero of his nation, Captain America. Through her, the Red Room had a chance to get to Steve Rogers, a figure who had influence over the American public, and it would be delectably easy._

_Natalia had been selected in early childhood for tutelage in the Red Room and for the budding Black Widow program because she would grow up to be beautiful. The Red Room’s scouts had identified the traits and Madame B could confirm it. The little girl they’d analysed also possessed the bone and muscle structure that would be ideal for training in their line of work. She was intelligent, flexible, and resilient and would grow up to be strong yet maintain a feminine silhouette. That was just the kind of agent they needed to get Steve Rogers under their control._

_The redheaded girl almost regretted returning from the Hand with Steve Rogers and his companions when she discovered what Madame B hoped to make her first major mission after graduation. Natalia felt that she should have seen it coming, that she should have expected Madame B to hear that she had met the American icon. But she’d been hoping that her blonde instructress and the rest of the Red Room staff would die in action during the war and that she could stay with her adoptive father and perhaps achieve her Bolshoi dreams._

_The Hand’s methods were also too mystical and airy-fairy for the practical personality she’d been raised by the Red Room to have. Their demands were unreasonable, and Natalia was having second thoughts about joining them when Captain America, the Howling Commandoes and Ivan Petrovich had burst in to rescue her. And then when her rescuers had moved on to other battles, she had been forced to return to the Red Room and resume her training in the Black Widow program. She’d have to fight for her life until she graduated, and she would probably still have to fight to remain alive after achieving the title of Black Widow. She’d also have to betray a person who had risked his life to help her without even knowing her._

_Steven Grant Rogers had fallen in Madame B’s sights and she was very thorough in researching her targets._

_Madame B used her contacts embedded in the Allied Forces to gather information on Steve Rogers over the years so that she could add to the data that the fourteen year old Natalia had been able to report. She knew his physical measurements in all their explicit detail before and after he had received Dr Erskine’s serum. She knew there was green in his blue eyes in spite of only having had access to black and white photographs of the man. She knew he was Catholic, which parish he was a member of in New York and what years he’d been christened, catechised, received his first communion and confirmed respectively. She knew what action he’d seen in the war and all the locations he’d travelled to on his USO tour._

_She knew what Steve Rogers liked to eat and just how much he could eat. She knew his metabolism was too fast to allow for inebriation and that he sometimes hated that fact because it kept him in his life-long role as an outsider among the people he wanted to assimilate with. She knew who his friends were and their hierarchy in importance in his esteem. She knew which of his comrades he liked and which ones he merely endured- the man reserved his hate for Hydra and the Nazis. She knew the issues that riled him in his working life and his personal life. She knew he sucked at dancing and was scared to even ask any partner to join him in the activity due to a long-held inferiority complex brought on by years of self-comparison with his ruggedly handsome best friend James Buchanan Barnes. Madame B had photos of the contents of Steve Rogers’ sketch books. She even knew which county in Ireland Steve Rogers’ immigrant parents had hailed from._

_Madame B had laughed until tears streamed down her cheeks when she related to an unsettled Natalia the fact that Joseph Rogers, Captain America’s father, had been marked as a suspected communist by the US government due to his union membership and vocally active involvement in the Irish-American working-class community. The man had disappeared during the Palmer Raids and conveniently turned up dead a few days later outside an Irish-American watering hole doused in liquor. She’d said the Americans could have done a better job of covering up that little morsel._

_The woman knew who he had fucked and who he wanted to fuck and as a result there was some debate as to whether they should focus more on Elizabeth Ross the ginger girl masquerading as a blonde who Steve Rogers had broken up with, or Margret Carter the uppity English code-breaker who had elbowed her way into Allied Military Intelligence fuelled by the exhaustible resource that was vengeance, and who had the ability to shoot straight and throw a punch as her only strategic recommendations. Little ‘Peggy’ Carter wouldn’t have made the grade under Madame B’s scrutiny but the Red Room instructress still liked her as much as she could any enemy. Madame B decided that Margret Carter was the better subject to emulate._

_Natalia was taught to walk as primly as a British lady, but Madame B had decided that it wasn’t inspiring enough and Natalia had figure out how to infuse a little bit of the American screen star Mae West’s air into her step. Madame B was pleased with the result but demanded she perfect her technique further._

_Madame B invested a great deal of attention in Natalia and the young girl felt the consequences of such favour in the two years since her instructress had formed her plan. Tanya had cut a chunk of her hair off in a sanctioned fight in class and Sonya from the older group had tried to choke her in the showers. Natalia had to kill them both. She’d been punished with no food for a week for fighting with Sonya outside of a sanctioned match or exercise._

_Natalia had studied the assembled facts on Steve Rogers, and pushed herself to achieve top marks in the Black Widow program. She knew that she needed a way out from the institutionalised horror of the Red Room, and Steve Rogers was an opportunity. The tools for her escape were being handed to her and she learned how to use them well. The only thing that had stood in her way was her waifish body, but she had begun to develop a bust at last. She wouldn’t have to work around the setback of dealing with repercussions of the liquid silicone mixed with cobra venom injections meant to augment breasts that Kuznetsov had heard rumours of and decided to experiment with. The consequences of those experiments had gotten Olga killed because she was disorientated and slow. Katya, who hadn’t fully recovered, was still hanging on desperately as she fought tooth and nail to remain alive through fierce competition and vicious field exercises in the frozen Siberian landscape._

_“I half regret shooting Yuri Nikolayevich in the head. He was the right size match for our target,” Madame B hummed as she opened Natalia’s mouth to examine her teeth as if the girl was a horse. The strict blonde former-spy had shot the man in question a year ago for contracting gonorrhoea and daring to resume his sexual instruction post for the Red Room when their forces had regrouped and set up a new base in Siberia. Moscow had initially been a great choice as it had the Bolshoi, which they used in their cover as a feeder school for the ballet company; but Siberia was too large to search and a base built there would be too remote to reach or run from. The vast landscape and harsh weather was the perfect perimeter fence. They did not bother to handcuff the girls to the beds anymore. “At least I didn’t lose any of my spiderlings to his pustules.”_

_“Yes, Vasily Fomich’s penis is too thin,” Kuznetsov declared bluntly as he lifted his head to look up at the young redhead. “Natalia Alianova will have to practice with the dildo. Number eight-B should do.”_

_“Learn to have fun with it Nata- there’s no point suffering through it,” Madame B grinned with shallow affection. “Besides, Steven Grant Rogers is at least a good-looking target. You’re very lucky that we can use your meeting to our advantage. He’ll remember you with that eidetic memory, but you’ll have grown into a woman.”_

_“If she survives graduation,” Kuznetsov chuckled darkly._

_“Of course, Nata will survive!” Madame B chided lightly. She turned to smile at the sixteen year old and reached her hand up to stroke her red tresses. “Now about the colour: we should begin experimenting with the brunette shades soon.”_

_“Darker will be better,” Kuznetsov declared. “Too light and she’ll look plain.”_

_“Agent Popova sent word that she has managed to procure a sample from Margret Carter,” Madame B informed him gleefully as she strode over to a counter covered in instruments. “It should be delivered here soon.”_

_Madame B waved her fingers as she deliberated which tool to choose. Natalia remained at attention staring blankly ahead of her. Her instructress spun on her toes and returned to Natalia with a dildo in hand._

_“Eight-B is conservative. I think number eight-D is more accurate,” Madame decided. “You know the drill, Nata.”_

_Natalia followed the prompt to stand against the white wall, ready to take her medical photos. Kuznetsov clicked away with his camera while Natalia went through the clinical poses that would highlight the progress of her developing body._

_“Half an hour before bed,” Madame B ordered and then added the stern warning: “It is not to be shared with your female-relations partner. Masha is terrible with her pelvic exercises and she’ll be stretched wide as an old prostitute in no time with that.”_

_“Yes, Madame B.” Natalia nodded her understanding firmly and took the phallus. She may have been obliged to betray Steve Rogers, who had helped her escape the Hand and had no idea that the young Russian girl who had told him of her dreams of dancing in the Bolshoi was doing government-sanctioned unspeakable things in order to prepare to seduce him, but she was determined to repay the favour by keeping him out of the clutches of her superiors. And Natalia Alianova Romanova was set on making her escape with him._

 

@>-`-,----

 

When Natasha eventually exited the bathroom Steve was already tucked in bed, although his body was awkwardly positioned. His frame was so stiff and straight that he looked like a virgin princess who had been sold off to some syphilitic warlord to save her country. It didn’t do much for Natasha’s self-esteem. She scowled as she darted to her duffel bag to fish out a navy blue scarf and deftly wrapped it around her head. She tied the knot above her forehead with vigour while she seethed. It wasn’t the first time she’d had to share a bed with Steve and yet they were both acting ludicrously. Steve took the cake though.

 

Natasha yanked the covers away so that she could get under them, but the violent movement hadn’t distracted Steve from his staring contest with the luminous white ceiling above. She could have bought feigned fascination with the view of Earth they were treated to through the ribbon window taking up one wall of their suite, but Steve had to be blatantly awkward. Natasha glanced at the planet beyond and her eyes fell immediately on that spot on the Eurasian continent that had been home to the Red Room’s Siberian facilities. She’d never forget the topography of the place for as long as she lived.

 

Natasha’s eyes returned to the bed she was clambering into and her gaze landed on Steve’s tightly clenched left hand that lay rigidly on top of the covers. He’d taken the wedding ring off of his thin silver chain and chosen to wear it. Natasha sucked in a surprised breath before proceeding with more measured movements. She sat down and tucked her legs under the duvet slowly before reclining onto her back in an imitation of repose that was almost as severe as Steve’s. Natasha’s tired mind reeled with the knowledge that Steve had made such a move, if it was a move at all and not just the pre-emptive compliance with the omission of the fact that they had no memory of being married in any kind of life in their debrief with Fury.

 

“What are you doing, Steve?” Natasha whispered throatily.

 

“Trying to not fall asleep,” Steve answered tightly.

 

“You know I don’t mean that,” Natasha sighed. “Have you been brooding while I was in the bathroom? You know it’s not good for you. You start inventing conspiracy theories and connecting dots that aren’t there when you do.”

 

“Natasha, aside from the horrible losses we’ve had to face today, I’ve decided that I like this other Steve’s life. I… love his choices.”

 

Natasha dared not take another breath. Steve reached over to timidly take her hand while he kept his eyes on the ceiling. The tips of their fingers touched and Natasha reached out to entwine her fingers with his. She exhaled audibly.  

 

She squeezed his hand while she informed him: “I’m a bad decision Steve.”

 

“Well I have evidence to the contrary,” Steve scoffed. He turned his head partway to face her. “This Steve has a good life and I don’t want to fall asleep and lose you.”

 

Natasha smiled wanly at him and rolled cautiously onto her side to face him.

 

“Tell me something no one else knows, just in case I don’t wake up to you in a few hours,” Natasha urged gently. Steve rolled onto his side and lingeringly searched her features. He shut his eyes, touched his forehead to hers and inhaled shakily. He opened his eyes again to lock his disarming blue gaze with hers.       

 

“I used to dream in the ice,” Steve admitted. That wasn’t something reported in Steve’s S.H.I.E.L.D. psych evaluation files. “Not a lot of dreams but they were like breaks from the cold darkness. I’d dream that I was safe but as soon as I would relax the terror would start. I didn’t know what I was afraid of but I was petrified. Sometimes I dreamt I saw hell… And sometimes I dreamt everyone around me was going at a normal pace and I could only move in slow-motion. I felt like I couldn’t breathe in those dreams, which is ironic because I was frozen. I was definitely not breathing.”

 

Natasha knew not to comment on how lonely the experience must have been. Steve had been the one trapped in his head for seventy years. He had discovered what it felt like to have his expectations of relief and reward in death dashed and to remain disorientated in some sort of limbo.

 

Steve reached out with his right hand to finger a loose tendril of hair that had escaped from Natasha’s headscarf. She shook her head, nudging his touch off with her action.

 

“Steve, you’re going to make my hair frizz before it’s even dry,” Natasha complained weakly.

 

“I was going to keep quiet about the whole Peter Pan thing, back in Wakanda. What makes you think I’d mind a little frizz?” Steve chuckled. He settled his warm hand over her cheek and carefully traced his fingers down to her jaw. “Tell me something too.”

 

Natasha glanced down at their entwined hands and gently scraped her fingernails over the back of Steve’s knuckles. She shifted her hips only to return back to same position she had been in and shook her head from side to side. Natasha curled up tighter, bringing her head forward until she felt the touch of Steve’s lips against her forehead. Steve continued to caress her cheek soothingly.

 

“When I went back to the Red Room after Stalingrad,” Natasha began, “They decided to take advantage of my connection to Captain America. They wanted me to seduce you so that you would be under their control.”

 

“Nat, you weren’t even eighteen. What made them think tha-” Steve countered before he was cut off by a sardonic look from Natasha.

 

“They found out everything about you that they could lay their hands on- everything,” Natasha detailed. “I got to keep dancing so you’d believe I was a ballerina. They dyed my hair the same shade of brown as Peggy Carter’s…”

 

Steve’s expression had frozen in a slight frown. His right hand had moved to rest on her upper arm and he had yet to blink. Natasha couldn’t take the suffocating weight of his gaze any longer so she returned her focus to his hand lying between their bodies. She was probably holding it for the last time.  

 

“But then the news that you’d gone down with your plane had arrived and the mission had been postponed. And then when there was no sign of your survival the mission was aborted,” Natasha recounted. “But I’d gotten the Kudrin treatment- I was among the first to survive Lyudmila Kudrina’s super-soldier serum. And later, Madame B finally conceded that Dr Pchelintsov’s brainwashing techniques might be more efficient. The things I learned about how to handle a man _like_ you didn’t fade away from the instinct they ingrained. The knowledge could be used for others. You don’t forget the things that you earned through years of blood, sweat and determination though; that’s sort of why I allowed you to hold onto the hope that your friend Bucky could return to his former self.”

 

Natasha listened to Steve’s steady breaths and felt the regular rhythm of his heart through her palm where it touched his. She knew that Steve tended to have explosive outbursts- it was something she was more familiar with through experience than from theory derived from data analysis on his personality.

 

“Is that why you’re distant with me sometimes?” Steve asked gruffly. Natasha nodded her head jerkily in response.

 

“Among other reasons,” Natasha added. “Not hateful reasons.”

 

“If we ever woke up to a world where there was a time machine, would you hate it if I went back and killed the entire staff of the Red Room?” Steve asked dryly.

 

The corners of Natasha’s mouth tugged up incrementally as she fought the urge to laugh, but her expression sobered when she looked up into Steve’s face. His eyes had darkened and his countenance was grave. Natasha was surprised by the reaction. She had anticipated Steve ferociously recognising her as a traitor. She had expected him to look as livid, but she had expected that feeling to be directed at her, and not for him to ask whether she would mind what he would do to someone else in retaliation. It showed that even with seventy years of espionage experience under one’s belt, one couldn’t always predict how another person would react.

 

Steve snaked his arms slowly around Natasha’s waist and drew her closer. It was too deliciously intimate so Natasha ducked her head under his chin. Steve inhaled and exhaled measuredly as he nuzzled the top of her head.

 

“If we don’t wake up, or if I lose you, I’m glad you’re the last person I see and the one in my arms before this all fades away,” Steve told her.   

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Argh! I hope that was okay. It also took forever to edit- it’s almost 8K words! I kept second-guessing my word choices.
> 
> Once again I continued with the mixing history, Marvel storylines and things I just made up tangent. I made up some of the Red Room personnel. I hope it fits.
> 
> Also, I know it’s proper to use ‘Baptism’ instead of ‘Christen’ for Catholics, but I’m a sucker for alliteration. Seriously, I think I would do well in the magical community of the Harry Potter Universe the way I love kitsch alliteration so much.


	9. Emotional Thesaurus

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry this took ages to post. I worked on some Valentine’s Day plots because I wanted to actually have something done to post on the actual day instead of after. I still ended up posting half the stories afterwards and then I even wrote a sequel to one of them. Basically, I wrote over 31K words for that particular Valentine’s series! So I was writing. 
> 
> I also had to deal with a lot of admin and delays and bad luck à la Murphy. It seems that Life decided to dump a ton of other people’s problems on me that I’m somehow obliged to help with. And then our elderly dog had an op to remove a cancerous growth. A cyclone, that was downgraded, dissipated over my country so it was pouring and icy cold. Everyone around me is sick, and I’m trying to stay healthy (mostly through will power). So I was horribly depressed and worried for a while. There’s still weather chaos and flooding etc. And then there was an exorbitantly large one year old’s birthday party that I was roped into being MC for (Yes, you read that right). 
> 
> The last few days became hectic again after I finished writing this chapter, and I had to sit on it for a while because I didn’t have time to edit it properly. And it’s emotionally heavy so I wanted to be done acceptably. 
> 
> But I’m actually glad to be back to posting for this story.

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Nine

 

Emotional Thesaurus

 

Steve Rogers woke with a prayer in his heart and mind. He’d only ever drifted back to consciousness twice before in that state. The first time had been the day after his mother had passed. He’d prayed that the previous day had just been a nightmare formed of his fears and that his mother was still with him and instead of being terminally ill she was recovering. The second time had been the morning after Bucky had fallen from that train. He’d nodded off praying that Bucky had survived and kept on earnestly appealing to a higher power once he’d jerked awake from a brief period of black respite.

 

It had been too late for his mother. She’d gone to a better place and Steve realised that he was cruel to wish for her return back to a world where she was in pain and had to work so hard yet still live in fear knowing that all that she did wasn’t enough to achieve her aims. He was reminded again of that same lesson when Bucky fell, but then he’d found out decades later that his prayers had been answered although the life that Bucky had been dragged back into was hellish torture from the get go. Bucky had told him in the short time that they had together before he was frozen again that he understood Purgatory, because that was where he had lived for seventy odd years. He had declared he was still a citizen of that state. Bucky believed he might end up damned to Hell anyway.

 

But Steve’s fervour hadn’t turned to his brother-friend this time. The only thing in existence that Steve Rogers wanted at that moment was to wake up to his Natasha. Where they were didn’t matter, just that she was there, that she existed and knew him. All those moments, whether they were painful, beautiful or full of misunderstanding mattered. He couldn’t bear waking up to a Natalia who loved a different Steve. His heart would tear into irreparable shards if he was condemned to an existence where she was only a passing acquaintance. He’d lose his mind if she’d already passed on or had never existed in the first place.    

 

Prayer to Steve was asking for something sincerely and then entering into trance where he immersed himself in his faith. But prayer also required something that was more than bravery. Bravery required courage and courage arose despite fear that the worst would come to pass. Successful prayer demanded that you found that tiny little moment in your own request where you believed what you wanted would happen and there was nothing any mortal could do about it. You had to burrow into that moment and that moment would become your trance. And for Steve, he needed to leave prayer living in that moment. He knew he had to bypass the chasm of fear that all his faith was in vain that he sometimes encountered at the end of asking for what he felt he didn’t deserve. He had to get over his own insecurities about his worthiness for a moment.

 

He could do that for his Natasha.

 

Steve let himself slowly feel the warm weight of a body pressed against his. He registered the marshmallow-soft texture of smooth skin against his. He let himself feel the gentle rush of breath drifting across his skin over his collarbone and tickling his neck. Steve opened his eyes fully believing that he would see a mass of crimson curls wrapped up in navy blue silk. He was right. He was in the reality where Natasha Romanov was asleep wrapped up in his arms and they were in bed together on a space ship.  

 

Steve supposed he should have felt giddy with joy that he was where he fell asleep, even if he had yet to confirm that it was _his_ Natasha in his arms. And before the events of the last day he’d have been ecstatic that he found himself in such intimate contact with Natasha. But the meditative zone he occupied detached him from such riling emotions. What he felt was simply that familiar sensation of rightness that he most often experienced in Natasha’s company. He felt aligned and peaceful. That was a rare mood for him.

 

Awareness of his surroundings was accompanied by the awareness of his own body. His fingertips tingled where they lay across Natasha’s bare skin. Her fragrance-free smell tugged at some primal centre within him translating simultaneously into a soothing pleasant lull and an exhilarating desire for more of the scent.

 

He wondered idly what it was like for the other Steve to wake up to the other Natalia, and to be woken by her. He’d dreamed it before. He was familiar with the fantasy, but it was definitely lacking in the details when it came to the exact sensation of Natasha’s skin sliding across his. He didn’t even know what her mouth tasted like. The distant memory of the lone kiss between them only informed him that the smell of her skin was addictive and that her lips were soft. No tongues were used. It was like they had never kissed- even the chapstick she used was the plain flavour. Nothing was left behind except a question that had no words only sensations.

 

She was exquisitely lovely asleep in his embrace. The itch to explore nagged at him, but he held back. He couldn’t even attempt caressing little swirls with his fingertips, the kind that was a small gesture of comfort between the giver and the recipient. He couldn’t do that to her, because that wasn’t what existed between them. She was asleep and they hadn’t established that part of their relationship. Steve was after all, still just a friend, even if in another life he was her husband. He didn’t have permission for anything other than holding her as she slept, and it was about time that the right of choice was fully restored to Natasha Romanov. She shouldn’t have to figure out how people truly saw her: whether she was a person or a pawn to them.

 

Natasha played a little game that she’d only told the rules of to herself, yet everyone she met was automatically a participant. He’d noticed what she was doing in the subtle shifts in her daily behaviour. It was the tiniest thing, but she’d alternate between pronouncing her surname as ‘Romanoff’ and ‘Romanov’. New people who reverted to using ‘Romanoff’ even when she had stated ‘Romanov’ were tagged for further analysis and she’d test them to see what they expected of her and how that compared in their treatment of everyone else. Steve always changed his pronunciation to the last variation he’d heard from her mouth. Natasha knew he’d noticed her test. Sometimes she smiled when he called her ‘Romanov’ like he’d last heard her refer to herself as when everybody else called her ‘Romanoff.’

 

Time stretched on and the peace that Steve had woken with gave way to the ache of yearning. And he hated that he yearned because it was selfish. He wanted to know what her kisses tasted like and it was selfish. He wanted to know what it was like to arouse each other awake and it was selfish. He wanted to think that the rosy hue of the edge of her areola which peeked out from lace-edged cups of her silk aubergine purple nightdress was his right to enjoy visually and that was selfish and wrong. His Natalia Romanova deserved more respect than that. However many Natalia Romanovas there were, they each deserved more respect than that.

 

“Ask me a question so that you know that it’s me,” Natasha murmured against his throat. She’d seamlessly transitioned from asleep to awake without alerting Steve. The leg she’d hooked over his slid down his inner thigh and knee and caressed back up again. Her pelvis tilted towards the hipbone of his she was strewn over. Steve blinked at the ceiling above and tried to pretend that he’d been stung numb by a radioactive bee which would mean that he couldn’t feel the trill that scampered up his leg, pranced through his groin and settled to throb in ripples in his lower belly until the sensation dissipated.

 

“Why are pranks banned on Avengers’ property?” Steve asked in a low rumble after some thought.

 

“Because the last time there was a prank-war, all the guys landed up with glue in the crotch segments of their uniforms. The worst was Tony. We had to do an appearance for a children’s charity where we competed to find out who could drink the most milkshakes and none of you could use the bathroom. There was a lot of wriggling on national TV,” Natasha answered.

 

“I took the blame,” Natasha revealed as she opened her eyes to look at Steve, “but it was actually Wanda behind it all. She wanted revenge for the blind date with that singer she hates that she was ambushed with.”

 

“That was Wanda!” Steve exclaimed mildly. “And to think she made me drive all the way into the city just to go get those damn chocolates she likes from that chocolaterie that doesn’t deliver straight after that. Am I sucker or what?”

 

“Nope,” Natasha grinned. “We worked in tandem against you. Did you really think Wanda could eat six boxes on her own? Not in our job; and not right before a fitness magazine shoot.”

 

“Nonsense about saying goodbye to bikinis is about to come out of your mouth, right?” Steve chuckled. “Y’know I am aware of the fact that there are swimsuits out there that are not bikinis but are way skimpier than bikinis? Well, that’s for another debate. Ask me now.”

 

“What happened on November the eighth 2015 at 4:23PM?” Natasha asked directly.

 

“I called you for help because I got stuck in the bathroom window of that bookstore in the Village owned by that guy who has diamonds in his teeth and long pink dreads, because I was trying to avoid this big group of overzealous fans who had followed me into the store,” Steve admitted with a blush. “You laughed at me for a whole five minutes and then took a picture of my ass as I dangled from the window when you arrived fifteen minutes later.”

 

“Correct,” Natasha smirked. She rolled onto her back but scooted back so that her head was on Steve’s shoulder. “So we’re really here?”

 

“We are,” Steve murmured in response.

 

“They have a kid,” Natasha sighed.

 

“We… have a child,” Steve established. Natasha twisted again to look up at him. She managed to roll every possible sharp point her body could have into him as she did. It had been pretty long since Steve had a shoulder, elbow, hip, knee and big toe stab into him while he was still in bed. The pain made him want to grin stupidly.

 

“What if he- James-” Natasha began, carefully enunciating the name, “knows we’re not them? If we’re _here_ , then _where_ are they?”

 

Steve inhaled deeply and let the air exit his lungs shakily. “Nat, we just do our best. That’s the only way I know how to survive this kind of thing.”

 

“Survive a whole new life you don’t know?” Natasha clarified. She pushed herself onto her elbow to look down at him. The thin strap of her nightdress slid off her left shoulder and she swiped it back into place.

 

“Yes. We’ve got each other though, so it’ll be better,” Steve replied. He hoped he was making a promise he could see fulfilled. Tentatively, Natasha reached her left hand up to Steve’s face and traced down the line of his nose. She pursed her lips and searched his face. Even though Steve was familiar with the analytical expression on Natasha’s face, having seen it plenty of times before when he reckoned that she was trying to figure him out and how to proceed with whatever difficult facet of his personality had arisen, he felt as though they stood on a precipice of something intangible and if he breathed they might fall. Trouble was that he couldn’t see where they would fall and if he couldn’t see, then how could he protect her from what was coming?

 

“Blue eyes… I have a type,” Natasha drawled with a wry smile. She sat up and chuckled to herself. Steve wondered at that statement but didn’t question her. Instead he waited for any explanation she might have offered. Her back was littered with fading bruises. He shuddered to think what he would have done if she hadn’t been strong enough to wake up from the battle that had knocked their other selves out.

 

Natasha pulled at the scarf on her head and slid the scrunchie she had gathered her curls with off. She carefully ran her fingers through her hair, checking her roots for acceptable dryness Steve presumed. He wondered if she would wear it loose, because it wasn’t practical. It was tantalising though. She’d probably break his wrist if he attempted to play with her curls now that they’d set.

 

When he was a kid, the only time his mother would get curt with him was when he wasn’t paying attention while he would help her with her hair on a Saturday night. Sarah Rogers didn’t have time to do up her hair every day with the many shifts she worked as a nurse while fulfilling her duties as a widowed parent to an ailing child, but she always did her hair for Sunday mass. Steve would help, trying to support his tired mother where he could. Home hairdressing wasn’t too taxing so Sarah let her son style and set her hair before bed. It saved her aching shoulders, and gave Steve something other than reading and drawing to do. As a result, Steve became an expert in creating the finger-waves that were in fashion at the time.

 

“Freud and bastards like him would probably have the intellectual orgasm of their lives analysing me,” Natasha muttered bitterly. The words she had spoken begged him to push and find out more. Steve was compelled to know. Steve sat up beside her, and slouched forward so he could look at her face.

 

“Tell me,” Steve implored with gentle firmness.

 

“Not now,” Natasha answered as she rubbed the bridge of her nose. She shut her eyes and chuckled mirthlessly again. Natasha opened an eye to peek at Steve. “Later, alright? It’s too much right now. My head’s a mess and I’m confused about where the fuck I am. For a moment my mind wasn’t even in the right century.”

 

He could relate, and at the same time he couldn’t. Steve had been dumped into a new century and had practically left all he held as familiar behind, but Natasha had already lived eighty eight years. That was a full life, and she barely aged physically so it wasn’t a natural cycle. Natasha had lived outside what humans were built to endure. 

 

“Can I?” Steve asked hesitantly as he stretched his arms out to hover around Natasha in preparation for an embrace. Natasha scoffed and nodded her head emphatically. Steve carefully wrapped his arms around her in a hug. He was a little surprised at how Natasha flopped against him and melted into the embrace. She snuggled against him, and clutched at his pyjamas undershirt.

 

“Your scent hasn’t changed in seventy years Steve,” Natasha mumbled against his throat. “Isn’t that remarkable? I still like the way you smell.”

 

@>-`-,----

 

“You’re scheduled for medical evaluation in five minutes,” Sharon Carter informed Natasha Romanov aloofly. Her immaculate appearance had changed to another pristine variation, and Natasha assumed that she had had time to freshen up for the new day. Sharon’s blonde hair was sectioned into three Dutch braids that met in a high ponytail, and gave her the appearance of one of those glamorous ‘warriors’ that strutted down the catwalks of fashion weeks every couple of seasons for the past decade. Natasha felt the urge to smack her for being so naturally willowy.

 

Agent 13’s catsuit was gone, and was replaced with standard stealth fatigues. Natasha was glad of that because it made the civilian clothes she had to wear less… blatantly civilian. She’d reserved their spare uniforms for future combat and set about picking the most simple of her clothing to wear. Then she’d yelled at Steve for asking why they were dressing just like Nick Fury in turtlenecks and chinos. Natasha told Steve to stop copying what she was wearing and promptly changed her chinos for khaki green cargo pants. Steve had done exactly the same thing on his own, except he chose charcoal grey cargo pants, and Natasha had been about to say something about it when their suite’s doorbell buzzed.

 

Natasha debated the benefits and detractions of wearing a low-cut v-neck blouse in space, but long experience of Nick Fury’s preferred temperature control settings decided the matter. She’d have to stay in what she wore and follow the blonde model-amazon (she had never understood that label being attributed to waifish models. If any women were akin to the mythical ‘amazons’ of Greek legend then anyone who survived the Kudrin treatment in the Red Room were more apt holders of the description) to wherever their medical exam would take place.

 

“Steve,” Natasha called over her shoulder as she leaned against the doorway. She tucked a lock of her loose hair behind her ear even though her side-part style had been secured with bobby pins and held Sharon Carter’s gaze. He’d heard what Agent 13 had said.

 

“Shoes,” Steve gave as an excuse. “What the fuck was he thinking when he bought these? The laces are stupid.”

 

Agent 13’s right eyebrow lifted five millimetres in what Natasha assumed was amusement. The redhead wondered if the Steve Agent 13 was familiar with cursed in her company. A niggle of jealousy ate at her stomach, but Natasha shoved it aside. Instead she sighed and ‘casually’ slipped her arrow necklace off to remove her rings. She slid the set onto her left ring finger and popped the arrow necklace from her best friend back on. Natasha fingered the arrow shape for a moment, contemplating the man she lost before she returned her eyes to meet Carter’s stare.

 

“Ready,” Steve declared brightly as he skedaddled to Natasha’s side only to jerk his head up at the ceiling. Natasha glanced at him and then did a double-take at his ridiculous behaviour. She frowned at the blond man beside her, but then realised that he was still following her order not to look at Agent 13. She smirked, and tugged at his arm to follow her while Agent 13 impassively led the way.

 

“Agent Hill will be conducting the exam,” Agent 13 told them. Natasha swallowed dryly in response to the name. She glanced up at Steve and found that he was nervously looking at her. She squeezed his hand in comfort. They had agreed earlier that they would let Maria’s behaviour dictate how they should handle her and the loss of Sam.  

 

The medical centre on the Monolith was just as minimalist in design as the rest of the ship. Except of course for the all the scribbling on the walls and the papers strewn on the floor around a shabby petite brunette woman in the far left corner of the large space.

 

“Jane Foster?” Natasha enquired of the woman she recognised as Thor’s romantic partner. Dr Foster held up a hand and continued to scribble on the piece of paper in front of her on the floor. She was wearing a pale pink hoodie with a Garfield print on the front, pastel blue leggings and red slipper-socks. The time they were left to wait for her answer grew obscenely long, yet Jane held her hand aloft indicating that she would eventually respond.

 

“We’ll be here for hours if you’re going to wait for her to finish what she’s doing and reply to you,” Maria Hill’s clear voice interjected from across the room. She was exiting a supply closet, as Natasha could gauge from the shelves of boxes and vials behind Maria.

 

“Hello Maria,” Steve greeted quietly from beside Natasha. Agent 13 had already taken a seat at a counter and watched the scene keenly.

 

Maria was as neatly groomed as she usually was. Her dark hair was braided to one side and she wore dark blue fitted cargo-pants and a fleece jacket- the kind that provided the inner lining for heavier outer gear. Her eyes were white, but they were rimmed in red, and the corners of her nose were similarly tinged.

 

Maria smiled tightly at him, unable to show any teeth. “Hello Steve.”

 

Naturally Steve was incapable of sticking to the plan in the face of emotions, and strode up to the woman to sweep her up into a hug. If he had been tased for that Natasha would have had very little sympathy for him, but Maria accepted the gesture before pulling back and giving him a nod.

 

“I’m told that you don’t have the memories of our Steve,” Maria said. “But so far you seem quite alike.”

 

“I’m sorry about Sam,” Steve told her.

 

“Yes…” Maria murmured. “We all knew this could happen to any of us.”

 

“Doesn’t make it right,” Natasha whispered. “It doesn’t make it easier.”

 

Maria frowned at Natasha quizzically. “This is an old argument that I’ve won against you, but I don’t suppose you remember.”

 

Natasha puzzled how Maria could have won the debate. Losing someone you felt deeply for wasn’t ever easy whether you saw it coming or not. It wasn’t easy if it was the fault of an enemy or if you had a hand in the demise of a loved one. And it never felt right. Even putting another person out of their long-endured misery felt wrong. It always opened a vicious wound and hearing any advice that claimed it would get easier was just like taking a dip in the Dead Sea with that naked gaping wound.

 

“Let’s get you started,” Maria announced, dismissing their previous topic with her words. Natasha understood that part of Maria very well. Sometimes all that there was left was the familiarity of work to get one’s mind through. Some people might have thought it was a form of denial and an unwillingness to face the fact that her fiancé had died. But Natasha knew that there was no space for the five stages of grief in the lives of women like Maria and herself. She’d long ago learned to skip ahead to acceptance of death, and she was sure Maria had been privy to the lesson too, though perhaps not in such a brutal manner as Natasha had been taught.

 

“We have the latest in medical scanning technology on board,” Maria explained as she gestured to a machine that looked like a much sleeker version of a MRI unit. “And we can have full body scans complete in a few minutes.

 

“They had something similar back in Wakanda,” Steve commented.

 

“Wakanda, huh?” Maria enquired.

 

“We were… guests of the Royal Family,” Steve expounded. Natasha gave him a withering glare. “What? How am I supposed to navigate what the hell it is I can and can’t say, Nat?”

 

“Steven we’re flying blind at night through a storm of daggers here,” Natasha clarified brusquely.

 

“Well then let’s be bats,” Steve countered.

 

“I don’t know why I bother with planning any strategy with you. Unless it’s your plan then we just all just have to wing it against whatever shit flies our way because of the impromptu stunts you pull,” Natasha accused. She scoffed and muttered: “Fucking Freud.”

 

Steve Rogers was so her fucking type.

 

The blond man had opened his mouth to respond but was interrupted by a forgotten voice.

 

“Yes, it’s me Jane Foster,” the petite brunette in the corner piped up out of the blue. She scratched her head with the nib end of her pen and blinked at them. “You two really lost your memories, huh? If you have to ask with such uncertainty in your voice, Nat, then I suppose the rumour is true.”

 

Natasha took note of the use of the shortened version of her name that Jane Foster used comfortably.

 

“It’s not rumour, it was in the report,” Maria corrected with a sigh.

 

“I want to look at the data when they’ve done with their scans,” Jane requested. “I have theories, but theories need calculations and calculations need data.”

 

“Hello, Miss Foster, ma’am,” Steve greeted awkwardly. His face was very serious and Natasha rolled her eyes at him.

 

“‘Miss Foster, ma’am’? You make me sound like the cruel spinster matron in an orphanage of the Broadway musical variety,” Jane snorted. Natasha sidled up to Steve and elbowed him in the gut sharply with a smile. 

 

“I’ve only met her once,” Steve hissed. “And she was making eyes at Thor the whole time. They were feeding each other Pop-Tarts. It was too weird to try get to first name level acquaintance.”

 

“Do not speak that fuckhead’s name in my presence,” Jane growled as she leapt to her feet and then promptly slipped in her slipper socks, and landed on her butt. Natasha and Steve gaped at Jane in surprise. Thankfully Maria interrupted.

 

“Steve, get in the machine. We’ll scan you first,” Maria instructed.  Steve complied.

 

“Do I have to undress or…?” Steve enquired. “Shoes, I guess, at least?” He looked down at the complicated laces on his boots disdainfully.

 

“What kind of lives do you remember? This isn’t customs at the airport,” Jane chuckled. “We’re on a space ship that’s floating above the Earth- with artificial gravity and which usually has satellite TV from all the satellites. I can watch science programs in Korean!”

 

“Yeah, our world generally still needs hospital gowns and body cavity searches, Steve quipped as he got up onto the bed of the machine.

 

“Well, we still generally need hospital gowns and body cavity searches here too,” Maria responded as she typed away at the console controlling the machine.

 

“This thing better not send me back into the past,” Steve complained as the machine enclosed him. “I’ll be so ticked off. It wasn’t made by Tony, right?”

 

“Shut up, Steve. Let me scan you. No it was not made by Tony, or any Stark Industries employees. It was actually made in _Wakanda_ ,” Maria calmly answered him. She started the machine’s scanning sequence and a blue light flashed over the man. After it ran over his body, several other coloured lights followed in slow succession.

 

“Is this, um, safe for foetuses,” Natasha asked under her breath as she came to stand right beside Maria. She hadn’t forgotten that Agent 13 was seated behind them, and although she recognised that most of her behaviour towards the blonde was rooted in irrational (in their current situation) jealousy, she still didn’t want to have the woman immersed in her personal business. Natasha didn’t care if it was Agent 13’s job.

 

“Are you?” Maria enquired with a little gasp.

 

“Not that I know of, but apparently we were in the middle of trying. Like, really in the middle,” Natasha whispered to Maria. The exchange felt a little like their old gossip sessions. Natasha and Maria had never been ones to sit and gab over a bottle of wine, but they casually traded interesting titbits of info in the shooting range every now and then. “‘Might not show up right now but maybe later’ kind of in the middle.”

 

“That complicates things, right?” Maria probed. “I take it you weren’t striving for a similar aim in the life you remember.”

 

“It wasn’t a possibility so I actively never thought about it,” Natasha admitted with a shrug.

 

Maria nodded as she gazed down at the screen. She fidgeted with an engagement ring on her finger. It was a simple but dazzling brilliant cut diamond on a yellow gold band. A classic that was no longer common in the sea of platinum designs that were currently popular. Even though she couldn’t see the stone clearly, Natasha could tell it was of exquisite quality and wondered about the process that had led up to the selection. Perhaps the other Steve had helped Sam, and tagged along to copious jewellers. Maybe Natalia offered her expertise. Tony probably had nothing to do with it, as he’d take all the fun out of the anxious search by calling his diamond guy in Jaipur.

 

A chime sounded indicating the end of Steve’s scan.

 

“I can never get over how much it sounds like a microwave oven,” Jane remarked as she trotted over to stand on the other side of Maria as the scan data analysis came up on screen. Maria let Steve out of the machine and he jogged over to where they stood.

 

“How the fuck are you not dead?” Agent 13 whispered behind Natasha. It irked her that the woman was privy to her Steve’s medical data, but she had to agree with her statement.

 

“What? What is it?” Steve asked worriedly as he leaned over the console and twisted his head around so he could see the screen the right way up.

 

“Get back in there, Steve,” Maria calmly ordered. “We’re doing this scan again.”

 

“No what is it?” Steve insisted. He looked up into Natasha’s eyes, silently pleading her to answer.

 

“You’ve got signs of healing all along your spine Steve,” Natasha informed him clearly. “And it sounds impossible, but you’re also healing from a transection of your spinal cord. Your spinal cord was severed. You shouldn’t be…”

 

“Alive?” Steve whispered. “How?”

 

“I didn’t think the Super-Soldier Serum enhancement could do this,” Natasha admitted. “But look”- she pointed to an enlarged image on the screen- “somehow this knit back together. How could this have aligned again? Steve you should have died almost instantly. I guess this is the result of that last fall.”

 

“Steve, get in the machine,” Maria urged, but Steve stood stock-still staring at Natasha.

 

“Do my scan first before we rerun the tests,” Natasha decided. She moved towards the machine and Steve grabbed her hand to tightly squeeze.

 

“Steve, we have to know,” Natasha whispered. He nodded his head in understanding and let her go. Natasha told herself that Steve’s tests were probably incorrect. Perhaps a solar flare had influenced the instruments on board and her test would prove that the absurd theory that they were forced to form was wrong. But she also understood that with the barrage of improbable events happening around them, there was a small chance that something impossible happened to the pair of them. She flashed him a small smile before she lay down on the flat bed that slid into the machine. The corner of Steve’s mouth twitched in response, but he failed to smile back.

 

They were silent as Natasha’s scan was conducted, but four minutes later they had answers. Antsy from having to wait, Natasha rushed to the console to look at the data on screen and slipped between Steve and the computer bank to resume her place while Steve remained behind her.

 

“C4,” Maria Hill stated. Natasha saw for herself that the data read that her spine had been mangled at that point in her neck vertebrae. But she was standing and breathing. Her heart was beating. She was alive- or at least she thought she was.

 

“Is this Purgatory?” Steve whispered against her ear. Natasha jerked to look up at him. In that moment the blue of his eyes was all that she could see. High-pitched ringing overwhelmed her hearing and she had to tell herself to breathe or else she would drown far away from any body of water. Natasha found those little flecks of green in the eyes in front of her that differentiated them from the rest. The patterns were different. The patterns were Steve’s. Steve, whose pupils were dilated in panic.

 

Natasha snatched Steve’s hand and brought it up to her neck, digging aside the annoying roll of her turtleneck to lay his fingertips under her jaw at her pulse point.

 

“I’m here,” Natasha murmured softly. “I’m freaked out too, but I’m here.” It wasn’t often that other people were present to witness Steve having a panic attack, but Natasha had been one of those people. His trigger was the idea of losing people he was close to, and, even though their relationship might have been murky at that moment, they were undeniably close. Steve had already lost two people he was close to earlier, and he had been holding it together well, but Natasha couldn’t expect him to continue on unaffected after being confronted with information that directly involved his actions.

 

Telling Steve to breathe never worked. He had to know that she was alive in front of him, hence the offering of her vital signs. After a fraught minute, Steve nodded and forced himself to breathe in and out tremblingly. The ringing in her ears faded and Natasha was once again aware of the other people in the room.

 

“The Kudrin treatment can’t do this,” Natasha stated bluntly, turning to face Maria. “I’ve seen this type of injury before in other surviving recipients and it can’t do this. I’ve seen the autopsy dissections.”

 

“Perhaps it’s some other outside influence,” Jane theorised. “We should get readings on the ground, if we can.”

 

“No one’s going back into New York,” Agent 13 stated. “Those ships disappeared. They could still be there on a different plane but still in the same space. We can’t risk it until we know more about the enemy. There haven’t been any captures of enemy fighters.”

 

“There’s no sign of radiation exposure,” Jane mumbled as she bent over the console to examine a section of data readings more closely.

 

“A Mutant called Wanda Maximoff said that we were definitely the same people, except that our minds felt like they were on a slightly different frequency,” Steve recollected. He rolled his shoulders carefully and cleared his throat. “She alluded to having met us earlier in the day.”

 

“That actually gives me a clue on where to start looking,” Jane revealed. “I need paper.”

 

“I thought you were an astrophysicist,” Steve confirmed.

 

“Yeah, but physics relates to everything. What appears to have happened seems impossible, but the Universe operates under set laws. Perhaps we just haven’t discovered what the rule that created this outcome is,” Jane explained as she searched her pockets for a pen. She found one in the messy bun she had tied on top of her head. Maria handed her a pad of paper from a cupboard and Jane immediately started scribbling.

 

“There’re no detectable embryonic cells,” Maria quietly informed Natasha who nodded as she continued to scrutinise her data alongside Steve’s. Natasha’s temples had started to throb and the veins in her body felt too full. She didn’t know what the hell she was supposed to do with any of that knowledge.

 

“Fury has okayed issuing a report on global events of the past five years for you. We probably will need your skills in this war and we need you up to speed so you can contribute effectively,” Agent 13 announced. She stood up and handed Steve a tablet device, which he took absently, and turned to Natasha to catch her eye before giving her a tablet of her own. Natasha narrowed her eyes at Agent 13 and the woman mirrored the expression before the blonde spoke again in an even voice: “I expect that you both are hungry. We have an informal canteen area which I’ll show you to now.”

 

The ire reflected back at her was the first sign of interpersonal relations emotion that Natasha had seen in this Sharon Carter. It was interesting, considering that the Sharon Carter she knew couldn’t keep her feelings from bleeding out from behind her usual mask of frustration.  

 

“Try the alfredo- it’s the only thing worth eating on the ship now that the Pop-Tarts are finished,” Jane suggested insistently.

 

@>-`-,----

 

The alfredo was actually pretty good. It may have not been a breakfast food, but Natasha had sworn off eating reconstituted eggs unless there was absolutely nothing else to eat decades ago. Steve had twice as much as she did, as usual. They were seated across from each other at a table in the small canteen (with Agent 13 sitting in the corner annoyingly pretending not to watch them), reading through the notes and articles compiled for them on their respective tablets. The data was limited to global events and contained no mention of the personal affairs of Steve and Natalia Rogers’ private lives. Neither Steve nor Natasha had said much since they had begun their meal, but that was probably because Steve still hadn’t fully recovered from his panic attack.

 

Natasha’s forearm lay stretched across the table with her inner wrist facing up and the back of her hand cradled by Steve’s larger hand. His thumb rested against her pulse point, and the shared touch provided a tiny bit of comfort in their alarming circumstances. Natasha glanced up at him and he met her gaze with a meek smile. Steve returned his eyes to his tablet screen and continued to speed through the data they needed to catch up on. Natasha exhaled slowly and puzzled whether the blue of Steve’s eyes had been the second such set she’d felt so strongly influenced by or the third. Or was he the second and fourth? He was definitely the most influential. And the one who would probably create the most extensive fall out- a glimpse of Natalia Rogers’ life told her that.

 

Although he was bashful about it, Steve was the only one of that blue-eyed lot who didn’t mind holding her hand. He was grateful for it. And even if she was serving a function by offering her hand to ground him, and a few hours before Steve had offered the same to ground her, she could tell that Steve wouldn’t mind holding her hand for no reason at all. Her hand wouldn’t be demanded and spurned the next moment or not considered at all.

 

The specific arrangement of green flecks in his eyes kept her in the now and assured her of who she was with. Steve’s eyes were the almost exactly the same shape as the little baby boy’s in the photograph she had taken from her- their- suite at the Avengers’ Tower, which she carried folded up in her pocket. The baby boy’s hair was red though, like that other ‘hero’. But the shade of the infant’s hair was the same as his mother’s and the body she was in was the body of his mother. She wondered if she had been able, would the Red Room and KGB have required that she have a similar looking child with their chosen puppet. She doubted that non-existent child could have held such happy expressions in its life as the other Steve’s child had in all the many photos that were contained in the albums they had brought along.

 

“So any major differences in world history according to what you remember compared to what you have there?” Jane Foster asked eagerly as she slid into a seat next to Steve. She had decided to join them in selecting alfredo pasta for breakfast. 

 

“Yes, some,” Steve answered. He looked back up again at Natasha before he confirmed: “The first being that the Asgardians never returned to Earth in the data we’ve been presented with.”

 

“Oh, they returned,” Jane scoffed as she popped a bundle of the fettuccine pasta ravelled around her fork into her mouth. She chewed enthusiastically, as though the pasta were nicotine gum and she was in need of a cigarette. “To say ‘thanks for the hot monkey sex but my dad thinks you’re waste of a droplet of my entire very long Asgardian lifespan so I’m going to go back to my scary muscly Asgardian girlfriend who is so fucking sweet with her forced pained smiles and whose name is phonetically the same as the first syllable of a human venereal disease because I’m too chicken-shit to stand up to my crazy maniacal dictator father’.”

 

“Er…” Steve struggled. He withdrew his hand from Natasha’s to lay both his hands flat on the table as he turned towards Jane. Steve opened his mouth to continue forming an answer but he could only gape in a fish-like manner.

 

“Don’t say anything Steve,” Natasha warned.

 

“Is that the _opposite_ of what you remember?” Jane demanded glaring at Steve and Natasha in turn. Steve bit his lip to remain silent and Natasha returned Jane’s scowl with impassivity.

 

“Listen,” Jane told them as she leaned on her elbows over the table top and waved her loaded fork about, “I still need to collect data on the ground and check various instruments stationed around the globe, but I think you two might actually come from a parallel universe or something. It sounds like science-fiction but, come on, everyone on Earth has been living a life peppered with what was once thought to be science-fiction. I mean, remembering the same parts of your life up to a point but then having knowledge of a completely different sequence of events after that point leads to that preliminary theory. I just don’t get how you have the same bodies as the Steve and Natalia we know.

 

“But I don’t think we’re going to figure that out right now, and it probably isn’t necessary unless it’s in connection with the current mess we’re trying to deal with.”

 

“What happened to everyone else _we_ know then? _Our people_?” Steve asked quietly. “Why are we here? Why were we engulfed in a tidal wave that could only be found in Hell’s seas to be spat out on Hell’s shore?”

 

“Steve,” Natasha implored. He turned his eyes on her and stifled a grimace. There was a crack in his façade and Steve was struggling to keep the turmoil Natasha could see within his eyes inside himself.

 

“I need to be outside right now,” Steve told Natasha abruptly. He had reached the point where he needed to run or do something physical to regain control of himself.

 

“Well, ‘outside’ in this situation is the vast cold vacuum of space,” Jane pointed out bluntly. Natasha squashed the need to roll her eyes at the completely unhelpful comment. Steve squinted incredulously at the petite brunette next to him.

 

“Private conversation,” Steve beseeched Natasha. She nodded and they got up to head out of the canteen, only to be joined in their actions by Agent 13. Steve had grabbed Natasha’s hand and was already tugging her towards the entrance of the room when he noticed that the blonde was joining them. He stopped in his tracks and- ignoring the thirty degree rule Natasha had established- spun around to face her. Pointing emphatically at her, he growlingly repeated: “Private conversation.”

 

Agent 13 opened her mouth to reply when Natasha cut her short: “We’re going back to our room and that’s all. You’re not following us. We won’t do anything to sabotage this ship. If we go all evil saboteur on you then you have my permission to stab me in the thigh, over”- Natasha pointed at a spot mid-thigh that was not above a major artery- “here. I won’t even retaliate harshly.”

 

“No one is stabbing anyone. Natasha let’s go,” Steve declared as he frowned at the redhead who was slowing his stomping down. Agent 13 seemed to have gotten the picture, but she had no doubt that the woman would be monitoring their progress in the hallways. She might even override the mute settings of the listening devices that Fury afforded to the rooms of those he wanted to trust (only amateurs needed sound when there was video).

 

It was a very short walk getting to their suite going at Steve’s pace. When they entered the bedroom, Steve let go of Natasha’s hand and swivelled around looking as though he was searching for a door to slam but unfortunately there were only automated pocket-doors that slid shut on their own. He proceeded to pace the length of the room for a few minutes while Natasha settled herself to lean against the wall next to the door. She folded her arms and cocked her head to the side observing him.

 

Natasha was careful to set aside her own emotions, and tried to figure out what was eating at Steve. He was worried about the people he left behind, and they were currently in the company of different versions of some of those people. Key players were in the wrong places.

 

“It’s pretty shitty isn’t it?” Natasha probed. Steve paused for a moment to glance at her before he continued in his pacing. “I’m here and she’s out there and you can’t even be sure you can trust her. I keep half-expecting her to at least smile at you but all we’re getting is Robo-Sharon.”

 

“What?” Steve yipped in confusion.

 

“I mean if I’m being honest, I don’t quite understand why it’s me with these,” Natasha explained as she held up her left hand and pointed to her rings before folding her arms under her bust again. “I mean how long did we spend getting you to just ask that woman out for coffee?”

 

“Are you- Did you not understand what I’ve been saying?” Steve asked. His face was scrunched up in befuddlement. “And what the heck does that have to do with this? What does Sharon have to do with this? I fuck up once and it’s this huge avalanche of never-ending shit. Whenever I make a mistake it’s this- THIS! Sharon? Really? This is what you’re fixating on?-”

 

“I’m trying figure out what’s got your boxers in a bunch!” Natasha interrupted. Steve barely acknowledged the remark.

 

“- You’re complaining about fucking Freud: well, the evil psych evaluators at the old S.H.I.E.L.D. really tried to force an Oedipus complex on me and decided to warp that with an Electra complex when they selected Sharon Carter to be my friendly neighbourhood spy slash potential fuck buddy. A blonde nurse like my mother was a blonde nurse and Peggy’s great niece- she could have been my great niece! How the fuck did they know this wasn’t some kind of incest? Peggy was an agent too- she could’ve kept secrets from everyone and there could’ve been Steve Juniors running around hidden away from them.”

 

Natasha’s heart panged at the memory that Sharon Carter had not been the first choice of the ‘evil psych evaluators’ of the old S.H.I.E.L.D. They’d chosen worse: they’d chosen her.  

 

“And now I’m yelling at you when that’s the last thing I want to be doing,” Steve huffed. He rubbed his brow with one hand and rested the other on his hip. In a quieter, more careful tone he continued: “Nat, I told you that I liked this other Steve’s choices. It sounds to me that you think that I had some list with goals to tick off and I just had to find someone to fit into the role I needed to play opposite me. I don’t care that the other Steve lived all of these things. I care that he lived this with a version of you!”

 

“I know,” Natasha choked as she curled into herself.

 

“I’m yelling and I’m being selfish telling you all of this,” Steve murmured. Natasha looked up at him and vigorously shook her head. Words wouldn’t come out of her constricted throat. “But I guess it’s just that I’m falling apart here. People are telling us that we should be dead and I’ve never even… ki… not for real… not with you.”

 

Steve looked at her forlornly and Natasha wanted to incinerate the curse that she was.

 

“We saw Sam and Clint die and I just got Bucky back,” Steve soldiered on through a shuddering breath. “I don’t know where he is. I don’t know where any of the people we care about are. We’ve been chucked here and it’s real, but it’s not our real.”

 

It was pathetic, but the only salve Natasha could offer that wouldn’t stir the mess they were in detrimentally was work.

 

“Steve, we’ll figure it out,” Natasha began. She gulped to wet her dry throat and pulled back her shoulders to present a strong front. “But we signed up to put others ahead of ourselves. We have to focus on understanding and defeating the enemy.”

 

“And what if we die?” Steve demanded.

 

“Then we’ll have served our purpose,” Natasha parroted easily.

 

“Bullshit,” Steve snapped. Steve stepped closer to frame his arms around Natasha against the wall. He gestured between them. “Our purpose is to die? Then why James? Why does he exist? Why did the other Steve and Natalia dare to hope to have him, huh?”

 

“Steven, I’m not God! I can’t answer these questions,” Natasha flared up. His infuriating blue eyes with their specific pattern of green flecks were leeching her attention. “I’m struggling too. I’m being pulled in so many different directions and the most incessant urge is the need to run from this. But I can’t and won’t because I don’t know any of these people but I have a responsibility to them.”

 

“You’ll just run from me, that’s all,” Steve chuckled bitterly. His words were so truthful that Natasha wanted to slap him. She grabbed the front of his turtleneck and pulled him closer to threaten, but she forgot what the right words were. Their lips touched and their panting breaths mingled. Natasha shoved Steve away forcefully, but he quickly wrapped his arms around her shoulders to pin her to him as he stumbled back a step.

 

“I love you,” Steve bit out through clenched teeth. He lowered his head to her ear and assured her in a low-tone: “I’m in love with you.”

 

Natasha prepared to unhook his arms from around her torso, but Steve let her go before she could act.

 

“You shouldn’t be,” Natasha admonished.

 

“I don’t care,” Steve replied as he righted his appearance and shrugged the tension from his shoulders before he exited the suite.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So practically a month later, I have finally presented you with an update- a long one. Writing it was like milking a manatee (not that I’ve ever done that but it seems particularly difficult to me- research manatee milk glands if you’re curious. How do manatee calves get anything to drink?!). There was a different plot point I wanted to put into this chapter, but I think it has to be postponed. I need to explain some other things going on in Nat’s head before we get there perhaps.  
> Apologies again for taking so long to post!


	10. Not a Fly, But a Spider

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi! Remember me? I do still exist. Also, I seriously missed you guys. 
> 
> I know this took ages to update once again and I’m sorry for that. RL has been ridiculously busy and stressful to the point where if I do have time to write all I can manage to do is stare at the screen and wonder why what I have is so damned stupidly expressed when the scenes in my head were amazing. And then I just read everyone else’s stories…
> 
> As a result of the brain fog I am suffering from, all I actually want to do (aside from read fan fiction updates) is watch British detective dramas. Also, I would like to drink something potently alcoholic (like a pan-galactic gargle-blaster) in a very large glass. A huge glass. A glass vase. 
> 
> Majorly dramatic things have been happening in my country too- the kind of things that leave you mentally and emotionally exhausted. And disturbed. 
> 
> In fact, my world was rocked on Monday night. My bed shook… because of a 6.5 magnitude earthquake. Yeah, sure the epicentre was in neighbouring Botswana, but it was felt all the way to the coast. There is a karmic reason that ‘frack’ is a swear word in ‘Battlestar Galactica’. Say NO to Fracking!  
> (There was a second earthquake, which was 5.0 on the Richter scale, two days after the 6.5 one.)
> 
> Anyway, in this first little bit we will be introduced to another made up character. Also, WARNING for some disturbing Red Room children being living weapons stuff… And some animal cruelty (sorry!). I do feel like you need to read it though. I know some of you dislike going into that aspect of Nat’s background, but I wrote it so you would understand more of where I see her coming from.

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Ten

 

Not a Fly, But a Spider

 

_Red Room Facility, Moscow, Spring, 1933_

_“Natalia Alianova!” Madame B hissed tersely._

_Five year old Natalia Alianova Romanova stiffened from the swat to the back of her thighs and her run came to a halt. She shrugged her shoulders back and stood to attention. She knew better than to complain to Madame B who had no sympathy for anyone who broke the rules._

_“You’re late,” Madame B reprimanded. It didn’t matter what Natalia was late for, it just mattered that she was. All the other girls were probably settling into their classes or tutoring sessions. Natalia had needed to quickly make use of the lavatory during the break between sessions due to her having swallowed a lot of water that morning in their swimming lesson. She was only marginally better than Masha who was at the bottom of the class and that was terrible. Unfortunately, her bladder’s pestering was ill-timed and Natalia had to make her detour during the break between English classes on one end of the Red Room’s Moscow facilities and her new tutoring sessions in the shooting range all the way down in the basement of the main building._

_“Are you impersonating an ox?” Madame B enquired with a sneer. The blonde woman stepped out of the doorway she had been standing in and circled around the redheaded girl whose hair was braided into pigtails and pinned up into a crown on her head._

_“No, Madame B,” Natalia answered clearly. From the corner of her eye she could see Madame B’s switch tap against her thigh._

_“Then do move with some grace,” Madame B commanded. “You are very lucky to have Comrade Volkov as your tutor. Fyodor Alexeyevich is a hero of the revolution, and you were personally selected. Lateness is an insult to him and a disgrace to this program. Report to my office for twenty cuts after classes this afternoon- be glad the lavatories are all sparkling due to that explosion Katya and Tanya caused last week. Now go.”_

_“Thank you, Madame B,” Natasha chirped as she set off as gracefully as she could, hurrying down the corridors and stairwells to the tutoring session that Madame B made her without a doubt late for. The woman would probably say that Natalia was at fault for being caught in the first place, and the thought made Natalia want to grumble even more._

_It was a bad idea, but Natalia knew she was going to be incredibly late if she continued taking actual steps down the stairs to get to her destination. The quickest and least safe way would be to jump down through the space between the bannisters. Natalia knew she might injure herself if she landed horribly, so she focused all her attention on the mechanics of her leap over the bannister and her descent to the basement. Her landing was a little louder than what Madame B would have deemed acceptable, but she had escaped sprains and broken bones so Natalia was pleased with herself. She continued to skedaddle down the corridor, only pausing for a moment to smooth down any fly-aways on her head and to calm her breathing before she pushed open the door to the shooting range she had been due in three minutes prior._

_“Good Morning, Comrade Volkov,” Natalia greeted immediately as she swiftly made her way to the large man who was examining the sights of a rifle. Fyodor Alexeyevich Volkov peered down at the little redheaded girl from the corner of his eye aloofly. Natalia mentally compiled an identikit of the man as she stared up at him, putting into practice what she had been taught thus far in the Red Room. The man was six foot two inches in height- or so Natalia guessed, but she was still a little inconsistent in her height estimations- and had blue eyes and blond hair the colour of ripe barley. Natalia had only seen his profile, and from what she had viewed she deduced that his face was in proportion. He was a muscly man, something that was evident even though he wore layers of khaki uniform, but that was to be expected of a real agent. He fought the enemy and gave his best to protect the Soviet Union._

_“The placement of lavatories in this facility is inefficient,” Volkov stated in a smooth rich voice. Natalia’s eyes widened hearing it and his words. “You are late, but I suppose that is to be expected. It was rather obvious you were distressed in your last class.” Natalia had not had an inkling that she was being watched as she surreptitiously squirmed in her seat during her English class._

_Volkov set the rifle down and turned to face the alarmed little girl. His face was revealed to be handsome in a way that would be terribly useful in his line of work. His features were not overtly Slavic and would allow him to pass through many of the European countries and perhaps even America. His jaw was strong and his golden brown brows arched like the wings of a bird over his eyes. Volkov smirked slowly at Natalia as she continued to tense up as the seconds passed by._

_“But you are only five years old,” Volkov remarked. Natalia knew if she agreed with this statement, like a snivelling weakling would, then she’d likely get lashed instead of mere cuts with a cane._

_So she carefully replied: “I apologise, Comrade, for wasting your time. I shall complete my punishment to the best of my ability as soon as possible.”_

_Volkov frowned and responded: “There’ll be no punishment, Natalia Alianova. That would be a waste of time over something so trivial. I’d rather you spent your time concentrating on improving your skills. You are here for a reason after all.”_

_“Thank you, Comrade Volkov!” Natalia barked._

_“Now come to this table and show me what you’ve learned about firearms,” Volkov commanded. Natalia stepped closer and demonstrated her skill in identifying various handguns and rifles, and then taking apart and reassembling them. Next, Volkov instructed her to show him her shooting skills, though he specified that she stick to handguns for their first lesson. Natalia was glad because sometimes she felt overwhelmed by a rifle._

_“We have a lot of work to do,” Volkov reflected thoughtfully. Natalia’s spirits sank. She knew she wasn’t the best in class yet, but she’d worked hard to improve. She had thought she was pretty good. Volkov sat down on the simple bench that lined the wall, bringing his face closer to Natalia’s height as he sat staring at the targets across the range. The eyes that she thought were plain blue had flecks of green in them. Every blue-eyed person she knew had pure blue irises, clear as water. The interspersed blotches of green were mesmerising to her naturally curious and detail-orientated eyes. But she reasoned that she had only lived for five years, so she hadn’t collected such a large acquaintance._

_Natalia bit her lip in anxiety and then realised that she had resorted to a bad habit that made her thoughts and emotions obvious to all who looked. She quickly let her lip slip out from between her teeth and adopted an impassive countenance._

_Volkov scrutinised the little girl in front of him carefully. Natalia felt as though he was looking at her like an elaborate mathematics problem which he was solving mentally. Finally, Volkov picked up two handguns that had been upon the table. Natalia’s breath hitched. Her mind clouded over with worries of survival from challenges and duels against this formidable adversary._

_Casually, Volkov glanced over at the target and shot. Natalia’s head whipped to stare at the man-shaped target. Two interlocking holes gaped over where a heart would be located on the silhouette of a human body. Natalia sucked in half a gasp of wonder before a second double shot sounded and another pair of interlocking holes was torn through the centre of the ‘forehead’ of the target._

_“How did you do that?” Natalia squealed. Her head swivelled back and forth between the target and her new tutor in amazement. It should not have been physically possible to fire two handguns at once and hit the same point._

_“That is the level which I will get you to, little comrade,” Volkov chuckled. Natalia turned back to the target silhouette and began to imagine herself pulling off such a feat in front of her peers. They’d no longer be peers if she could shoot like that. Natalia would be their superior. She realised that the right corner of her mouth was curling up and quickly pulled it back into a straight line._

_“Natalia, do you know why you’re here?” Volkov asked quietly as he set the pair of handguns back down on the table. From his tone, Natalia understood that her tutor wanted a serious and well-thought out response from her. She scrambled to come up with one, but, before she could, Volkov supplied the answer. “There are bad people in the world, who try to do selfish things. But not everyone is able to defend themselves against these people, which is why some of us must stand up to protect all the other ordinary people. And if we do our jobs well, then we can even save the soldiers the trouble of going to war. We save their lives, Natalia Alianova._

_“But time is unfair, and we can’t always be there to protect our country. So we need a new generation to shoulder the responsibility and defend the Soviet Union. We searched the country for the best. Natalia Alianova, we found you. It’s my job to make sure you become the very best, and become our Black Widow. I see you achieving that. Prepare yourself, because that is your destiny.”_

_Inner courtyard, Red Room Facility, Moscow, Late Summer, 1933_

_“Have you ever killed an ant, Natya?” Fyodor Alexeyevich Volkov asked the fiery-haired girl who squatted next to him in the courtyard as they took a break from the one-on-one knife fighting tutoring session they were busy with. Natalia arched an eyebrow at him querulously. Fyodor Alexeyevich, or Fedya as she’d been allowed to call him in private, took a drag of the cigarette that was pinched between his fingers and exhaled slowly as he waited for Natalia to answer._

_“Of course, Fedya,” Natalia answered impatiently. She returned her eyes to the ground below and the line of ants that weaved a path over the paving and around her feet. She reached out with her index finger and squashed an ant to demonstrate her point. Fyodor Alexeyevich scoffed and took another drag of his cigarette._

_“And a fly?” he enquired._

_“When I can catch one,” Natalia replied breezily._

_“You should always catch the ones nearby- it’s good practise for your reflexes,” Fyodor Alexeyevich pointed out. “A bee?”_

_“Why? That would sting!” Natalia protested._

_“To see if you could beat the sting,” Fyodor Alexeyevich re-joined with a grin. “What about a moth?”_

_“Those things are stupid. It’s almost impossible not to kill one. They’re forever landing somewhere you can touch their wings and damage them. Then they can’t fly and it would be cruel to let them live,” Natalia grumbled._

_“A butterfly?” Fyodor Alexeyevich probed curiously._

_“You don’t really see butterflies around here, Fedya,” Natalia sighed._

_“True,” Fyodor Alexeyevich agreed as he surveyed their drab surroundings. The blond man straightened up and strolled over to a corner of the courtyard to survey the splatter of white and grey guano that had accumulated on the concrete floor. He tilted his head up to squint at a scrawny nest of twigs balanced on a ceramic plumbing pipe that curved at a right angle to disappear into the wall of the building._

_“Pigeons,” Fyodor muttered. He dropped his cigarette stub to the floor and stamped it out. Fyodor raised his hand to beckon Natalia over. “Natya, come see this.”_

_Natalia stood and joined him as she was told. Fyodor gestured up to the nest and Natalia understood the unspoken command to get up there anyway she saw fit. She quickly scaled the building, using the ledges of windows as her footholds. She was joined by her blond mentor, who had shimmied up the plumbing pipe soundlessly. Fyodor Alexeyevich grabbed hold of one of the bars covering a window, while he kept his feet pressed against the pipe._

_“What is the point of a pigeon? I keep asking myself that,” Fyodor mused. He pointed with his chin to the nest and its two occupants. Two ugly grey chicks that looked like deformed cygnets, sat huddled on top of a handful of twigs. “They don’t even build proper nests to protect their young. They’re flying vermin. What do they do? Harass people instead of going out and finding their own food like real birds do. They’re lazy and there’s too many of them, really. The other day, I just missed being shat on, right before a gala.”_

_Natalia giggled in response. Fyodor grinned at her crookedly. Natalia had learned that his smiles were only ever charming. He never wasted one by imbuing it with coolness. Not with her at least._

_“It looks like the parents have learned to use this as a nesting spot,” Fyodor sighed. He glanced at Natalia, before he continued: “We should teach them that this isn’t an option.”_

_Natalia cocked her head to the side curiously. She tried to imagine what kind of trick or deterrent Fyodor was thinking up._

_“Kill them,” Fyodor instructed with gentle firmness. Natalia paused and looked at him straight in the eye. “They’re vermin, Natya.”_

_Natalia blinked at her tutor, before she pulled herself up to sit on a sill. Her green eyes flicked back to him, before she returned her focus to the nest. Her hands hovered near her thighs. She didn’t want to scare the chicks off, though she reasoned that with the downy fluff they couldn’t really go anywhere but down to their deaths against the concrete floor of the courtyard. She steeled herself and prepared to attack. Fyodor Alexeyevich was right: the birds were vermin and they had to be dealt with._

_Natalia killed the chicks, snapping two very tiny necks._

_Student Dormitory, Red Room Facility, Moscow, Late Winter, 1934_

_It was too far away to hear anything, but Natalia Alianova excelled at lip-reading- she was the best in her class. She could even lip-read English and French. But that evening Fyodor Alexeyevich and Madame B were speaking plain Russian. They were in her office, and from her dorm room one level up, Natalia could see through the windows to watch them if she stood on her cot._

_‘She’s going to be your Widow, Comrade,’ Fyodor Alexeyevich seemed to insist. Madame B was gazing back at him impassively. She always withheld her expressions while she listened. ‘But six years old- that will fuck them all up.’_

_‘They have to obey. They must be prepared. They will begin missions soon,’ Madame B replied relaxed._

_‘Whose fucking idea was that?’ Fyodor Alexeyevich exclaimed as he threw his arms up. ‘They’re not even strong enough to finish the job. We’re training them, but there is no way they could have the strength to face off to that level.’_

_‘You underestimate my girls,’ Madame B told him. She’d raised her eyebrow. Natalia knew that meant she was irritated. One did not want Madame B to be irritated with them. But it was Fyodor Alexeyevich, her Fedya, and no one could be irritated with him. Everyone loved him. All the other initiates looked forward to when Fedya would be instructing a class. Natalia felt proud to be his only personal mentee._

_‘I’m not underestimating them. I cannot underestimate Natalia Alianova,’ Fedya said as he leaned over the desk. ‘She will be exactly what we were aiming for when this started and more. I promise you this. But if we fuck up these girls now, then we will diminish them. They need to be mentally strong- unbreakable and prepared to thrive in this life they will have to live.’_

_‘Fedya,’ Madame B said as the corner of her mouth turned downwards. Natalia was surprised that Madame B would refer to Fedya so intimately. She never did that with any of the other instructors. But perhaps it was because they were both Comrades who knew each other from the Revolution if the cook’s gossip was to be believed. Madame B held Fyodor Alexeyevich’s gaze steadily. ‘They will face off. The best will survive. This program’s outlines will work. Failure is not an option.’_

_‘Failure is never an option,’ Fedya retorted as he folded his arms across his chest. ‘It’s not in our vocabulary.’_

_The pair stared at each other for another thirty five seconds before Fyodor Alexeyevich turned to leave. As he did so, his eyes met with Natalia’s and she knew she’d been made. A flare of panic arose in her and she wondered if Madame B had noticed her too. Fyodor Alexeyevich held her gaze for a second and left through the office door, closing it behind him. Madame B remained seated at her desk, sighed and pulled out a bottle of vodka and a glass from a drawer._

_Natalia clambered back under her blanket and wondered about what exactly it was that her mentor and Madame B were arguing about._

_The next morning, when they were told to face off to the death for the first time in their sparring evaluation, Natalia knew. Madame B watched with a scrutinising eye. Next to her, Fyodor Alexeyevich scowled. It was the first time Natalia had seen such a surly expression on his face._

_When he asked her later, Natalia was able to tell him that killing Irina felt almost the same as killing those pigeon chicks they’d found the year before. Killing Irina was not as uncomfortable as strangling that cat they found, the one which snuggled up in the boiler room, that kept having too many kittens. It was not as messy as slitting the throat of that thin stray dog that probably had rabies. Somehow, it wasn’t as bad as shooting that donkey which had collapsed in the road that time Fedya took her to the forest to practise her sniping skills. Natalia had to shoot it in the head and the beast had looked her in the eye. A passing group of villagers had hacked it to pieces for the meagre meat its carcass yielded._

_Killing Irina only niggled at the back of her mind. That is, until Natalia closed her eyes to sleep that night._

_Gymnasium, Red Room Facility, Moscow, Summer, 1936_

_Fyodor Alexeyevich sat crouched down on his haunches staring at the girl huddled in front of him. The faint odour of paraffin and the peanut-like scent of burnt hair still clung to her as she sat curled up in a daze. Her right eye was swollen and he suspected that she had fractured some of the bones in her left foot. There was a bright pink burn running up her arm, but it wasn’t as serious as it could have been and they had the balms to heal it well. She should have been in the infirmary, but Natalia Alianova had been sent straight to her scheduled tutoring session once her punishment was completed. Madame B’s temper was at times counterproductive to their aims and that day was one of such occasions._

_Natalia had just spent the night outside in the dark courtyard holding a weight above her head as she squatted, while a guard made sure she adhered to her instructions with the help of his dog, an enormous black and tan Caucasian Ovcharka. The crime that warranted this punishment was becoming the target of another Red Room initiate’s private assassination attempt._

_For some mysterious reason, as is common place in children’s bullying practices, Tatiana had singled Natalia out. She was bitter in their sparring sessions and incessantly attempted to undermine Natalia in their sedentary classes. Natalia had obviously noticed it, but had decided to ignore the nonsense Tatiana was attempting to create. She was successful in this response until Tatiana cornered Natalia in the baths the previous evening. She doused Natalia in paraffin and attempted to set her alight, taunting her with some drivel about her fiery coloured hair. Natalia fought back and Tatiana had produced a sharpened hair comb. Natalia had been the sole survivor of the attack. Madame B had been furious about the wasteful nature of the incident and the fact that she already had rogue (and possibly mentally unstable) students in her program who were not following her rules. She had planned to only encourage the behaviour once the girls had reached their adolescence. Losing students outside of sanctioned events messed up her orderly system._

_Natalia had been punished for attracting such malicious persistent attention and not acting soon enough to snuff it out._

_“I don’t know if I’ll be able to dance,” Natalia whispered brokenly. The murmur was unexpected and revealed the chaotic nature of the little girl’s thoughts. She was worried about missing out on what was most of the girls’ highlight of being in the program: learning ballet. Ballet was the escape from the harsher aspects of their daily life. Fear of death had taken a very strange place in Natalia’s view of the world. Or perhaps her concern was an obvious reminder that she was still a child, with a child’s priorities._

_Fyodor Alexeyevich inhaled deeply and slowly let out his breath before he stood._

_“Do you know why animals play, Nata?” Fyodor asked casually. He wasn’t expecting an answer from the exhausted girl and didn’t get one. “Animals play to learn. And predators play to learn to kill. Wolves and bears practise how to kill. Humans, even though we are still animals, generally don’t practise this. Mothers tell their children they are being too violent if they get into a playground scuffle. But how will a person know how to fight for their lives if they’ve never fought before?”_

_Fyodor glanced over at the little girl who had not moved._

_“Playing with dolls and the like is all very nice, and it will help them as they practise having conversations before they matter, but holding a doll won’t teach you to wield a knife,” Fyodor elucidated. “Playing is training for the most part, Nata. You practise movements and you challenge your imagination to create. What the program wants you to do is to harness this period in your life where you can learn so well to give you an advantage over other agents.”_

_“When a child plays, it’s like she is already living in a real situation. Your play_ is _training. You are practising for the real duties of being an adult, Nata,” Fyodor explained. “These things and duties you have to practise for are more demanding than most people can endure. But you can do it, Natshechka. I know you can do it.”_

_“You and the other girls cannot play like other ordinary children. You’re not ordinary. You are extraordinary. Other little girls get to retreat into a make-believe world that they can manipulate when they want to ignore their reality. You are practising for reality,” Fyodor stated._

_“But you still need that escape, Nata,” Fyodor continued softly. “You are still a little girl. You are still human. You need joy and to feel unhindered and limitless. But there is no play afforded to you. The program does not allow for this, and we must abide by its rules. You need play, your mind needs it, and the only thing I can advise you to do is to throw yourself into your training and find the things you like in it. Enjoy them, Natshechka. I cannot give you a dollhouse, but I also know that you like being able to do what you learn here.”_

_Natalia picked at a spot on the back of her hand that she’d been incessantly scratching at while Fyodor spoke. He waited for a response to his words and Natalia eventually dipped her head once in a slow nod. Fyodor let out a relieved exhale and moved onto what he wanted and needed to teach Natalia for her own good._

_“The reason that female agents are sent into the field, is because people incorrectly assume that women and girls are harmless,” Fyodor stated. “Everyone in this building knows otherwise.”_

_Natalia merely shrugged her eyebrows in response and continued to stare at the polished concrete floor beyond her feet._

_“It’s true that physical strength and size may be a factor against you when you have to face off against men, but you will learn how to fight smart. Being smaller and weaker does not define the outcome of the fight. Luck cannot be allowed to define the outcome of a fight. Tatiana was bigger than you and probably a smidgeon stronger. I wasn’t there to witness this brawl, so I can’t tell if you were lucky. I’d like to think that you were more level-headed and skilled and that is why you were victorious and survived.”_

_“Most of the time, you will have weapons at your disposal,” Fyodor continued, “but every now and then you will have to play up the meekness of your appearance and to do so you will have to give up any kind of weapon you have been issued. In those cases, you will have to make the best of your environment.”_

_Fyodor chucked an object at Natalia and she snatched out to catch it, her eyes zooming in on the approaching object to identify it as she did. It was an ordinary spool of thread, the plain brown kind needed for repairs to military uniforms._

_“You must think about how anything and everything can become a weapon. The weaknesses of a personality can be used as a weapon. Weakness must be identified and weaponised. Not necessarily for blackmail, but to craft bait to lure your target. As a female agent, that will be part of your standard repertoire. But words won’t always save you.”_

_“That thread- figure out how to make it a weapon against a man of my size,” Fyodor instructed. “I will attack and you counter.”_

_Natalia blinked at the spool of thread in her hand and remained crouched on the floor._

_“Get up,” Fyodor urged firmly. Natalia winced as she pulled herself to her feet. She leaned her weight on her right leg and stared sullenly up at Fyodor. The blond man raised an eyebrow imperiously and cocked his head to the side as he waited for his mentee. Natalia stuck her nose in the air and hobbled away from the wall so that they would have more room to move._

_They stood ten paces apart facing each other in silence, and the familiar tension built between them until Fyodor sprang forth towards Natalia. Natalia pulled the thread and spool between her hands and leapt towards Fyodor once he was close enough, and used his thigh as a stepping stone on her way up to swing around his body. She wrapped the thread around his neck to strangle him but was quickly swatted away._

_Natalia kept her mouth shut as she tried unsuccessfully to stifle her groans of pain from the impact of hitting the floor. Her back was covered in bruises, from when Tatiana had kicked her._

_“A single, ordinary thread, Nata?” Fyodor huffed in annoyance. “I’m four times your weight and a trained assassin. You can try that when you’re older, larger and have smuggled something like Vibranium out of Africa to make your own wire with.”_

_Natalia let a small roar of frustration rumble through her chest but not out of her mouth before she rolled back up onto her feet. Fyodor ignored her tantrum. They engaged again and this time Natalia had speedily gathered several layers of thread back and forth between her fingers. Fyodor swiped the thread away with a cupped hand._

_“Too easy for me to get out of and for you to have thought of,” Fyodor told her bluntly. “Think laterally.”_

_Natalia walked back to her starting point and turned on her heel to face him. She frowned at her blond opponent as she analysed his form and then gave a small nod. Fyodor ran towards her again in the same manner and this time Natalia went low and attempted to tangle Fyodor’s feet up. He stumbled forward and hopped out of her wispy trap._

_“Good- great idea. Now develop it further,” Fyodor praised. “I’m bigger than you so bring me to a level where you can dominate. Use the floor to help you.”_

_Natalia nodded vigorously as she examined the thread in her hands while she untangled it. She opened her mouth and then shut it again._

_“Ask questions where you can, Natshechka,” Fyodor prompted gently. Natalia continued to slowly wind her thread around the spool for a few moments before she spoke._

_“I want to make a net, but I can’t figure out how to do that in just a few fractions of a second. It’ll probably be something I have to practise to get down anyway,” Natalia revealed._

_“Well then, let’s sit and figure out the mechanics of that,” Fyodor said as he smoothly crossed his legs and sat down in front of the girl. She tried to do the same, but had to settle for stretching her left leg out so that she wouldn’t jar her foot too much._

_They spent two hours weaving different patterns between Natalia’s fingers before they had something that was elaborate enough to be effective and was relatively quick. Natalia and Fyodor got to their feet and slowly went through the manoeuvre to test her little net. The plan worked and Fyodor found the thread trap sufficiently inhibiting. He had allowed himself to fall to the ground and Natalia had climbed onto his back._

_“Now from here, go straight to a kill move. Snap the neck and put your weight behind it,” Fyodor advised. Natalia safely demonstrated the moves and bounced to her feet._

_“It’s like I caught you in a web!” Natalia exclaimed gleefully._

_“Well, you will be our Black Widow- it’s only apt,” Fyodor replied with a smile. Natalia laughed and spun another little net, fascinated with her new technique._

_“Thank you, Fedya,” Natalia beamed at him. Fyodor Alexeyevich smiled back at her and ruffled the top of her head with his large hand._

_“Let’s get you to the infirmary,” Fyodor stated. Natalia followed at his side as he escorted her to their medical facilities. “I want you to work on cutting your time. Make sure your body knows exactly what to do to throw your net well. It must become instinct and honed instincts give you control.”_

_Cloakroom, Red Room Facility, Moscow, Spring, 1938_

_“Natshechka, people like me don’t have families,” Fedya remarked frankly. Natalia was seated on a bench in the cloakroom stitching a gash on her leg closed. The redheaded girl had completed their latest obstacle course before anyone else and had collected the head of her criminal citizen target. But she hadn’t come out unscathed. She was irritated with herself for having gotten injured and hoped that it wouldn’t scar or there would be hell to pay. The balms they administered in the Red Room worked very well, but they weren’t always fool-proof. Madame B had been so angry when Anya, who was so beautiful, got a gash right down her face. The girl had been subject to so many experimental treatments, and the imbecile who had given the porcelain beauty a crème that burned had been shot in the head in front of everyone in the mess during lunch._

_“We do this because we have to. We don’t have room for the comforts in life, because we gave those up so we could fight for the rest of our countrymen to have those rights,” Fedya went on as he stood leaning against the wall watching her. “But every human has something to pass along. You are my legacy Natalia. I have no daughter, no son, but you are my legacy. Remember that.”_

_“Why are you talking so morbidly?” Natalia wondered aloud in a playful tone of voice as she looked up from her stitching. Fyodor Alexeyevich didn’t mirror her smile as he usually did, but remained stoic instead._

_“Natshechka,” Fedya went on softly. “There’s a German- a Jew- whom they say is close to creating a serum that will make any man a hero. He hasn’t yet, but one day soon he’s going to make a super-soldier.”_

_“What does that have to do with us? We’re spies and assassins? Soldiers are mere fodder used to push the agenda and achieve the aims of our government,” Natalia stated confidently._

_“After there are super-soldiers, they’ll make super-spies,” Fedya informed her with a fatigued smile. “The Americans have him now, the Jew. But someone will get close to him, it could be us or it could be anybody. They’ll find out how he’ll do it- or maybe some other scientist will discover how to do it before the Jew does- and then there will be super-soldiers and super-spies. You’ll probably be one of them, Natshechka. But you’ll still be the best, because you’re my legacy.”_

_“Are you going to die?” Natalia asked carefully. Over the years, Fedya had left and returned numerous times for espionage and assassination missions. He always returned intact. Not once had she seen him returned injured. But life in the West was growing turbulent. That tiny blob of a country called Germany was drawing attention to itself with its fervour. Countries south of the Soviet Union were tensely entangled. Madame B ranted and lectured regularly on how she thought their government should proceed to come out on top._

_“Everyone dies, Natalia,” Fedya said quietly._

_“Only amateurs die,” Natalia snapped. She balked at the tone of voice that had coloured her words. She was only parroting what Madame B had yelled at them whenever a Red Room initiate had failed._

_“Everyone dies, Natshechka,” Fedya reiterated. “But_ we _give up the fear of death so others don’t have to die unnecessarily soon. We give up everything. Everyone here- even Madame B- has given up everything. We have nothing but this. We have our purpose. Sometimes, you’ll get a glimpse of what our countrymen get in life- the simple joys they take for granted-but those moments will be fleeting. Sooner or later you’ll be reminded of your purpose. And when we’re gone, we leave our legacy without any footnotes to say who brought it about.”_

_“Fedya…” Natalia whispered as she looked up at him. Madame B would have backhanded her for showing such weak emotion on her face, but her Fedya wasn’t Madame B. The needle still hung from the thread she used to stitch herself up as she stood and it was forgotten as she threw her arms around the mentor who was like a parent, like an older brother, like her best friend. Fyodor tentatively wrapped his arms around her and chuckled._

_“Dear Comrade- dearest Comrade,” Natalia murmured into the rough fabric of his jacket._

_“Those little moments you get to live life, Natshechka,” Fedya rumbled. “Promise me that you’ll live them with your all.”_

_Natalia nodded her head vigorously as she squeezed her arms around him._

_Red Room Facility, Moscow, Autumn, 1938_

_Madame B’s hand on her shoulder hurt in a way that Natalia was not used to. She was used to piercing pain, short chopping blows and agonising pressure. But Madame B’s vice-like grip was not controlled like it usually was. Instead her hand seemed to be a conduit for the emotion she could not keep contained in her body. Natalia knew that whatever it was that troubled Madame, it was bad. The blonde woman had wordlessly strode into Natalia’s Mandarin lesson, yanked her out of her seat and dragged her out of class, not even noticing as Natalia stumbled to keep up with her._

_Natalia had a feeling she knew what it was. She earnestly hoped she was wrong._

_Madame B marched on, down the many stairs into the basement where the shooting range was located before she yanked Natalia into the boiler room. On the far end of the chamber, there was a plain steel door that was always locked. Olga had said that was where the bodies went when one of their fellow ‘spiderlings’ was killed in an exercise or during an evaluation. Natalia had never wanted to go into that room, but Madame B pushed her in._

_Bright white light flooded the large cavernous room and Natalia blinked to adjust her vision. Kuznetsov was there and he was wearing one of his doctor’s gowns that made him look like a weedy ghost. The doctor looked up at the pair who had entered and acknowledged them with a nod. He returned his attention to the table in front of him and the cadaver that lay on top of it. It was a body that was too large to be that still even though Natalia knew that the white sheet placed on top of it meant that that body would never move of its own accord again._

_Natalia knew the hand of that body, the hand that peeked out from under the sheet. Natalia knew the blond hair._

_She knew that Kuznetsov was speaking, she heard the sound of his voice. She knew she drew closer to the body on top of the metal table, but she did not feel her legs and feet move. Natalia only felt Madame B’s hand on her shoulder and the cruel, demanding grip the blonde woman held her under as Kuznetsov lifted the white sheet._

_Fyodor Alexeyevich Volkov was dead. Her Fedya was dead._

_Half his face was burned and a lifeless blue eye flecked with a smidgeon of green stared at her where an eyelid should have covered it. They’d hacked his eyelid off- roughly. His lips were tinged in blue and his skin was so pale._

_“HYDRA” was the first word Natalia took note of. It was the only word Madame B had said thus far. Her voice was icier than Natalia had ever heard it._

_“Get out, Kuznetsov,” Madame B instructed measuredly. The doctor took a moment to consider the two people standing opposite him and his boldness was met with the heavy vicious slash of Madame B’s sudden backhand. He quickly complied with the order._

_“Natalia Alianova, you know what HYDRA is?” Madame B brusquely asked the girl with bright red locks standing by her side. Natalia nodded. She knew she should speak her answer as she was trained to, but her mouth wouldn’t work._

_“Our Dear Comrade was assigned to infiltrate their organisation,” Madame B explained emotionlessly. “The blond hair, the blue eyes, the ample masculine beauty, bravery and charm of our Dear Comrade had them easily fooled. But somehow he was discovered. I don’t know how… there have been rumours of HYDRA collecting people who can see into your mind._

_“The people who think they pull the strings, who tell us how to do our Russia proud, will one day have us fuck the bastards who did this to Fedya. Mark my words, one day they will want us to do this- to tolerate the pigs that did this heinous thing to our Dear Comrade. But I wanted you to see this. You needed to see this because you must remember this sight._

_“Ivan Petrovich may have taken you in and become your father, my little spiderling, but you are Fyodor Alexeyevich’s daughter. Our Dear Comrade may perhaps have had some forgotten child somewhere, but you are his daughter. You are his legacy, no?”_

_Natalia nodded her head firmly. The wetness on her cheeks informed her that she had failed to stem her heart’s reaction, even though her body felt colder than midwinter’s sleet._

_Madame B turned to her sharply and spun Natalia around to face her. The blonde woman knelt down on one knee and glared at her with wide manic eyes. Madame placed her hand on the centre of Natalia’s chest, above her heart. Natalia’s breath hitched._

_“It hurts, doesn’t it?” Madame B enquired with a crazed half-smile. “But I am glad for you Nata. I am glad you feel this pain. Embrace it and let it deaden your emotions. Children always love. It doesn’t matter whether the love is deserved or not, they always love. But once you get rid of this useless feeling, then you can become a true weapon of value. Once you are free of these childish whims, you are an adult. You can change the world. You have the determination to see your aims through, and pitiful considerations and entanglements cannot hinder you. You will never feel this pain again. You are free Natalia Alianova.”_

_Madame B lied. Madame B was deluded. Once infected, heart-break was a life-long recurring disease._

 

@>-`-,----

 

The Monolith, Somewhere Above Earth, 9 May 2016

Natasha’s hand trembled as she reached for the door that had shut behind Steve after he stormed out of their suite. She wanted to follow him but she felt so weak. She felt as though she had lost her grip climbing a rope and had suddenly dropped far into a dark pit. The web spun from emotional links, memories and relationships she had so carefully woven and maintained was slipping from her fingers. She hated feeling so out of control. She wanted to tell him that she cared for him more than she had ever cared for anyone else, but instinct that protected her sanity cautioned her to distance herself from him. She knew the more she felt, the worse she would feel when fate took him away. Because fate would take him away. Fate always took those she loved away.

 

The familiar struggle between her urge to act on her desires and hard-earned sense warred within her and Natasha found herself drained. Sense was her sanctuary. It was easier to give in to sense. Her head would keep her alive… and protect Steve.

 

Unfortunately, her sense had decided to turn on itself and provided an argument: They had already seemingly died. It may have been short, but they had lived a life that Natasha never dared to dream of for herself. And there was James, the little redheaded boy with green eyes who had inherited Steve’s long lashes and smile.  

 

Except these factors were not elements Natasha was familiar with- she had no experience of them that she could remember. But she knew Steve, and she was intimately acquainted with the ache of yearning thinking of him brought to her chest.

 

Natasha twisted around to the wall as she continued to lean against that cool surface. Her blazing forehead welcomed the temperature difference. Natasha swiped viciously at a tear that ran down her nose and focused on breathing evenly.

 

The annoying thing about tears escaping from one’s eyes was that one’s nose started to run no matter how few tears were actually formed. Natasha sniffled loudly, and placed her hands against the wall in front of her chest as she tilted her head upwards in an effort to stem the flow of mucus that was so keen to exit her nostrils. She chuckled breathily and shook her head.

 

Her heart still ached. Steve said he loved her and she couldn’t say it back. The realisation of what had just happened rattled around within her, jarring long-held indoctrination out of place. She couldn’t say it back. She wouldn’t say it back. She wanted to say it back. The words swelled up from deep within her and got stuck in her throat, and choked her so ruthlessly that her body physically reacted. The spider soul inside of her, that had been born and wrought from decades of devious demands of her from the Red Room, would have rather she flagellated herself as her own body strangled her rather than allow herself to enjoy and give into human emotion.

 

Ironically, Natasha knew that the man who had taught her how to kill would have probably liked the man who gave her the space to consider that she might want to live- really live. Fedya would have liked Steve, simply because he had earnestly fallen in love with her. Fedya, who she hadn’t allowed herself to think of for an age, would have hated that he was an American, but he’d have tolerated it because of the way that Steve made Natasha feel. But was her dear Fedya right in the belief that this horribly beautiful emotion was fleeting? Because her traitorous Sense was telling her it was not.    

 

Half an hour prior, a computer had shown her evidence that she should be dead. It felt so damned stupid that she’d never let herself be freely in love with someone who truly loved her back.

 

Perhaps Fedya had cut the capacity to like someone such as Steve out of his personality long before she ever met her first mentor. Natalia Alianova Romanova was his legacy after all. The only ‘footnotes’ on him that still existed which hadn’t been redacted were contained in her mind and memory.

 

Natasha pushed herself off the wall and patted her face, checking for any wetness while simultaneously indulging in the cool touch her chilled palms offered. She ran a hand over her curls and waved dismissively in front of the door sensor for it to open up.

 

The door slid open to reveal a blonde leaning against the opposite wall with arms folded, waiting outside for her.  

 

“Buck the fuck up, Rogers,” Sharon Carter drawled sternly as she glared at Natasha.

 

Natasha stepped out of her and Steve’s suite and plastered on a tight smile while she rolled her neck free of the tension that the sight of the blonde woman brought on. And then she flung her head towards Sharon Carter’s face, head-butting her.

 

The scuffle that followed played out exactly as Natasha would have predicted it would, if she had been an outsider in her right mind: Agent 13 immediately kneed Natasha in the side, which was a hit that Natasha was willing to take as she had divested Agent 13 of a dagger and swiped at the woman as she threw herself back in a flip away from the blonde. A leg was kicked up and another joined the first to lock around Agent 13’s head. Agent 13 had heard the singing of the released blade and had grabbed the hand that held the knife and twisted it before she was pulled forward onto the ground. Once on the ground Agent 13 entangled her legs similarly around Natasha’s head. Both women wouldn’t let the other hear, see, or feel her wheeze and gasp for air.

 

Losing her temper never yielded pretty results for Natasha.

 

“Were you spying on us?” Natasha demanded.

 

“That is my damn job!” Sharon Carter replied. “And obviously I was right to because you just attacked me out of the blue. I think you promised I could stab you in the thigh if that happened?”

 

Sharon tried to direct the blade in Natasha’s hand towards her thigh, but Natasha’s grip was steely.

 

“Oh please, you’re just interfering. You couldn’t let well alone. You just had to swoop in like a fuckin’ vulture ready with your cloying vanilla perfume, your condescending shiny golden hair flicks and camel eyelashes batting like you took lessons from Betty Boop!” Natasha retorted.

 

“What in the actual fuck?” Sharon stated bluntly.

 

“Parallel fucking weird-shit world and you’re just the same. The same shield-chasing, opportunistic, romantic-heroine-wannabe- Holy fucking shit!” Natasha’s growl turned into a yelp as she got her arm out from under her and Sharon’s bodies to find out that the hand that was not holding a knife was clutching a clump of blonde hair. Natasha had finally noticed that she had cut off about four inches of Sharon’s hair. Both women stared at the tuft of snipped hair for an agonisingly long moment before making eye contact again.  

 

“We let go and roll away on three,” Sharon said curtly. Natasha nodded in agreement.

 

“One, two, three,” they said in unison before disengaging, rolling away and upright again.

 

“One of us is crazy,” Sharon stated as she ran her hand over her much shorter ponytail. The unintended hair cut would result in some really bad layering the next time the blonde wore her hair loose.

 

“One of us just survived a week of crazy and then woke up to mind-meltingly insane,” Natasha retorted.  She still had the two prizes she had stolen off of Sharon in her hands: the clump of hair and the dagger.

 

“The walls aren’t growing eyes or anything yet- it could get worse,” Sharon responded. Sharon narrowed her eyes and licked a small droplet of blood from her lip, which was a result of Natasha’s head-butt. “It’s a good thing I lost my real teeth ages ago. Thank you, modern cosmetic dentistry.”

 

“My former employers had solutions for that decades before you Westerners,” Natasha scoffed.

 

“Whoa- ‘Westerners’? Did we time jump back to the Cold War?” Sharon sneered.

 

“You are a Westerner. I was born a Russian- it shaped me. In the end, the geographical location you inhabit doesn’t really matter because we’re all just human animals. But culture helps you relate to others. The Soviet Union and their allies were very driven in their pursuit to be the best. They succeeded in some aspects,” Natasha drawled.

 

“Yeah, we sound like we’re riling each other up before an old-time duel and one of us is going to strike when the other is sufficiently distracted,” Sharon pointed out after dismissing their exchange with a wave of her hand. “Explain to me why you just acted like you were auditioning for a wrestler themed episode of ‘Cheaters’?”

 

“You were irritating me and I lost my temper,” Natasha replied shortly.

 

“The Black Widow doesn’t have a temper to lose,” Sharon argued.

 

“The Black Widow has an unusually large capacity for patience,” Natasha supplied with a smirk. “Now why hasn’t the air been sucked out of the room like Fury promised?”

 

“I didn’t request that from the system,” Sharon smirked smugly. “Now please explain your paranoid delusions concerning the safety of the fidelity of your husband and my general integrity.”

 

A long pause followed before Natasha spoke: “The Sharon I know decided to take advantage of the most inopportune time to attempt to forge a relationship with Steve. That happened very recently according to my memory.”

 

Sharon’s eyes widened and, after a few seconds where Natasha could swear she physically felt the other woman’s astonishment, she burst into laughter.

 

“Why the hell would I pursue Steve? He’s so… Steve: boring, boring, boring, and then epic melodrama all at once. Then it’s back to being boring and the cycle repeats. You know, my career’s way too important for the hassles of a relationship right now- especially one with a _married_ man who is regularly the topic of tabloid articles. They’d just love the headlines though: ‘National hero’s sordid affair with son’s godmother’, ‘Spy’s May-December affair with her great-aunt’s hot ex’ or some other hooey.”

 

“You’re James’ godmother?” Natasha enquired sceptically.

 

“Go look in those albums you were so keen on bringing along,” Sharon answered. “It’s seventy five percent of the reason why I haven’t held you down and shorn you like a ginger sheep in retaliation for this unwarranted haircut you just gave me.”

 

“Apparently I look like I belong in Neverland with short hair, so your restraint is appreciated,” Natasha quipped. Sharon snickered as her eyes ran over the redhead’s long locks.

 

“Seriously, Steve? Me and Steve?” Sharon questioned in disbelief. “I couldn’t even coax the guy to do laundry at the same time I did. His face is still the image that flickers to mind whenever I think of the term ‘pained smile’. You’re the one he’s always at least conversed with in full sentences. It’s probably the trademarked spider seduction techniques and all: convincing flies, monsters and heroes into your parlour. But your appetite’s gotten selective enough to keep the prey you like as a companion.”

 

“Is this what it’s like to confront the cheerleader bully in a supernatural teen soap-opera?” Natasha wondered aloud with mock-seriousness. “She’s halfway ‘nice’ and then she gives you a veiled vicious insult.”

 

“Well, I took notes from the likes of you. The world is a harsher place after all. Once again, for your paranoid mind as it deals with being recently catastrophically injured, your husband and I are just colleagues and friends, which is what I thought we were before the past eight hours.”

 

“Your repeated insistence is making me suspicious,” Natasha told the blonde. She was amused by Sharon’s assumption that the world had gotten worse. The world in her experience stayed consistently bad. One had to seek out and immerse themselves in the pockets of good if one wanted to live in contentment.  

 

“Your continued delusional stance is making me wary,” Sharon returned. “One of you just threw a tantrum, and the one who’s supposed to calm the histrionic member in your relationship down just attacked me after hours of surly stares sent my way. We’re in the middle of a planetary crisis here. We don’t have time for this.”

 

“True,” Natasha agreed as she straightened up from her battle ready stance. “Therefore keep your comments about my personal relationships to yourself.”

 

“I was ensuring the continued functioning of a valuable resource. The Black Widow is above emotional entanglement,” Agent 13 reminded her.

 

“When did you get the time to live through and review eighty years of memories in my head, Carter?” Natasha asked sarcastically.  She handed the blonde agent the clump of her severed hair and her dagger before sauntering off down the hall towards the incident room where she knew Nick Fury to be and guessed her supposed husband to have stormed off to as well.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a journalist called Steve Evans reporting on the news as I was multi-tasking and I took that as a sign to just get this done already. I kept on having to add and edit because the chapter wasn’t quite right.  
> But Yay! Finally!  
> So… hopefully I will be able to get the next chapter out sooner. Also, I feel like I need to write a crack-fiction. This story is so emotionally taxing to write. Heck, I want to just push Steve and Nat together and say ‘Kiss damn it! Get it on!’ But then the voice of Spock tells me ‘That is illogical at this point in the story.’


	11. Un-Friend My Ugly Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let’s just pretend that I was off on an adventure with The Doctor, and, instead of being returned to a few moments after I left in the timeline, I hopped off the Tardis a few months later by accident… 
> 
> [Damn, I even had a birthday during this hiatus. And three Marvel movies were released! I missed Spidey on circuit and I’m still upset about that even though I rented it as soon as I could. By the way how AWESOME was ‘Thor: Ragnarok’! I always feel better after watching a Thor movie. I could even ignore the Brutasha thread. It’s still lurking in my mind and I wish I was a scriptwriter for Marvel so that I could just write a scene into ‘Infinity Wars’ where Nat’s like “I got over it… and on top of Cap.”] 
> 
> Apologies. Life was dramatic and other people were extremely exhausting. I was rendered speechless several times. I ranted approximately once a week. I regurgitated a lot of Deepak Chopra gleaned advice to others and myself. I had a public breakdown- because my breakdowns are only ever public. 
> 
> I did have to rewrite this chapter from scratch twice because it just wasn’t working well, I got stuck on one section because it just flowed awkwardly and then all my bouts of inspiration tended to occur while I was driving or on the verge of falling asleep. I banned myself from taking part in the fandom in the hopes that I would get something acceptable written [Why are my chapters so long?!]. I legit don’t know if I even like the end result. I also have A LOT of reading in our fandom to catch up on now. 
> 
> A few hours before I did the final edit of this, I was standing next to my car balancing an 8kg sack of dog food on my knee as I searched for my keys in my voluminous handbag (which is in the messiest state it has ever been contents-wise) and I just thought that if I crumbled to the ground it would be awesome because that would mean I could sleep. Instead, I decided to edit when I finally settled in for the night. And had a tiny amount of vodka while I did so. 
> 
> Well, welcome back to the rollercoaster that is this story…

 

**Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel Characters or the Marvel Universes they interact in. I also do not own any recognisable popular culture iconography mentioned or described within the following story. I only own the plot of the story that I have written, but I do not receive any monetary reward for its distribution. I write for self-improvement in my writing skills and because I love the Romanogers fandom. All I get paid in return is smiles, laughs and sometimes tears over the lovely things readers write in their comments.**

 

Chapter Eleven

 

Un-Friend My Ugly Heart

 

There was an odd societal perception that artists were crazy. But the simple truth of it was that artistry was for the devout. Immense dedication, passion and belief had to be poured into one’s art to create an impact on the world and satisfy the muses. Naturally that would lead to obsession in various degrees and forms. So what if you could see sound; or polka dots were deific to you? Artistry was direct engagement with the nature of being. Ideas and forms flowed from the unknown through the artist into the world. An artist felt a connection with something holy and often felt more secure in that connection than they did in any attempts at love with another being.

 

For Steve Rogers, Natasha Romanov was akin to that perfect pigment a visual artist could obsess over. And that colour was his lifeblood. It was as though the vitality bled and thinned from him the further away he was from her. Distance was not physical death, but the forging of an unseen intangible spiritual chasm that ripped them farther from the closeness Steve craved. The emotional landscape upon which he stood was akin to the jagged steep edge of a sharp mountain ridge, and the chasm that separated him from Natasha darkened into something more and more abyssal by the second. Steve didn’t want to fall in, but gravity sucked that way.    

 

As Steve stomped away from his fraught encounter with the most significant woman in his life, his blood pulsed hot through his arteries and yet the cutting chill of dread still ran up his spine from his gut. He needed to turn around and go back to Natasha. He done exactly the thing he’d been accusing her of: he was running away from the conflict that accompanied his feelings. But what he’d done was worse because he’d forced those feelings on her. He’d told her how he felt, ignoring all the experience that he had knowing that she did not want to hear it and that she was not interested. It didn’t matter if she felt anything for him. Natasha had the right to choose what path she would follow in life. She had the right to judge for herself what was best for getting what she wanted.

 

He’d tried to woo her, but she would have none of it. That was the end of the story.

 

He was so fucking selfish.

 

Steve gulped down the nausea that seized his digestive tract and squashed it back into that knot of icy hot dread under his belly. The doors to the situation room of _‘The Monolith’_ opened before him and his ‘work-face’ was firmly plastered on as he stepped through them. They had objectives and work and people that were counting on them to save their lives. His own pathetic tragedy could wait for when he finally gathered the guts to step into a confessional once again.

 

He listened with intense focus as Maria filled him in on the state of Earth’s defences- which were struggling to muster with direction- and nodded curtly as Fury began to outline the possible strategies open to them. But the problem with knowing that one was pathetic was that one was highly aware of one’s inner turmoil, and in Steve’s case it was the ache at his core that haemorrhaged acute panic and yearning for the redhead who had unintentionally bewitched him. And unfortunately, the elixir that had sustained, or possibly tainted, his life, Erskine’s Serum, had ensured that Steve was able to split his mental focus very well. Work and duty was no escape. Steve berated himself for foolishly thinking that they could be.

 

“The fall out of this attack is unprecedented,” Nick Fury sighed as he looked down on a holographic map of the Earth. Numbers in red hovered over a myriad of spots above the continental land masses. “These are just estimates, but we’re in dire straits. The Earth has never suffered an attack of this magnitude before. Everything we’ve been up against has been child’s play compared to this. We still have no idea who we’re up against or where they are. Communications are still shoddy and we have barely any data coming in. Bright ideas are welcome.”

 

“It’s obvious,” Steve interjected seriously as he propped himself up on the console desk he was looking down on, “but we need to call on every ally we have and carry out a co-ordinated attack using everyone’s abilities as effectively as possible. The team that I remember is different to the one we had… here, but if those individuals Natasha and I are familiar with are in existence and able, then we should reach out to them. We had good contacts right at home on Earth- people who had the enhancements and technology to help us make a difference.”

 

“Our best resource would be the current Crown Prince of Wakanda,” Natasha stated casually as she sauntered through the doors smoothly. “T’Challa. He’s their current Black Panther and the Wakandans have the technology and resources to be impactful. His wife is also likely a Mutant, but I haven’t had time to verify that. If she is then we could have a link to at least one faction of the Mutant community.”

 

Natasha had travelled around the large central console to stand on Steve’s left. She was so close her hip almost grazed his forearm as he leaned against the flat topped surface. Steve fought a silent battle to get his ribcage pliable enough to allow his lungs to take in air. He felt as flustered as when Natasha had begun instructing their new team in naval training and had sat on the edge of the pool with half her wetsuit rolled down and tied at the waist, wearing a red scoop necked and low-backed one-piece swimsuit underneath and balancing a whistle between her lips as she scrutinized the general poor swimming technique the team members had. Only Rhodey had made the cut.

 

“Ororo had links to a school for gifted kids,” Natasha continued.

 

“I think I know who you mean,” Maria noted and quickly tapped away at her portal.

 

“I see we’ve got a hellicarrier off the coast of Los Angeles. If possible, could we run a facial recognition search for Scott Lang, Hank Pym, Hope Van Dyne and James Rhodes?” Natasha requested.

 

“Hopefully Scott’s not in jail,” Steve mumbled to himself. Nick seemed to have heard his remark and looked as though he might have said something but for the arrival of Agent 13 who had changed her swishy ponytail into a small tight bun on top of her head. Steve marvelled momentarily at the feat the blonde woman had achieved in creating such a tiny bun despite being in possession of a reasonably luxurious amount of hair. He reasoned that she must have wound the length up very tightly. Nick frowned at the woman who ignored his attention in favour of smirking sarcastically at Natasha.

 

Steve’s eyes slid from the right corner of his vision, where Natasha stood, to the blonde woman across the table from him. Natasha seemed nonchalant- or at least the vague blur of red hair and neutrals in his periphery that he could brave seeing did- but he could recognise the taste of the mood in the air. Someone was likely to get punched or slashed very suddenly.

 

“And if we could find a James Logan-” began Steve.

 

“-sometimes Howlett,” interjected Natasha.

 

“I think we’d be gaining a useful ally,” Steve suggested firmly, trying to close any gaps in the conversation that would provide the opportunity for any kind of scuffle. The brig would not be a useful place to land up on this ship, as there’d be no safe way to escape. Outside was space, as Jane had reminded him earlier. “He’s gruff, but he has a good moral core. Or at least, I hope he does in this… world.” 

 

“He’s currently not available,” Fury answered cryptically.

 

“Meaning?” Natasha asked directly.

 

“Mr Logan has physical qualifications that make him suitable for pursuits that would be extremely taxing on regular humans, not to mention carry higher chances of risk for them. He volunteered to be part of a space mission,” Nick explained.

 

“What?” Steve blurted out.

 

“He volunteered?” Natasha questioned doubtfully. “He wasn’t captured again and programmed, or at the very least coerced?”

 

“Rogers, you know I like my people _convinced_ to join. They feel much more obliged to stay if they ‘wanted’ to sign up,” Nick retorted with a simper. The knot in Steve’s stomach fluttered in such a way that it induced a dizzying queasiness in him at the easy manner in which Fury referred to Natasha as a ‘Rogers’. Steve felt like a sinner because it made him just a tiny bit jubilant.   

 

“Obligation is a tether of inconsistent strength. Team members who want to contribute the abilities that got them noticed for selection prove to be more effective in their duties than those who are unwilling to be there, imagine that they were coerced and are constantly wishing for a different sort of lifestyle other than the one they feel obligated to remain in- at least in my significant amount of experience they do,” Natasha replied coolly. Her arm brushed against Steve’s as she moved forward to lean against the console table in front of them, prompting Steve to flicker his gaze towards the redhead who had crept further into his line of sight from his periphery. It made the hot tendrils of awareness slithering surreptitiously up from the second knot of anxiety- this time rooted in his left flank where Natasha was so close- difficult to ignore.    

 

“Great, then we’ll hold a company picnic after we stop the world from ending,” Nick retorted dryly. He continued sarcastically: “Oh yeah, the world’s always ending.”

 

“Philosophy, later. Plan of action, now,” Maria reminded them sternly.

 

“Who _do_ we have available?” Steve queried as he tore his gaze away from the bright red curls that had been tucked behind Natasha’s ear.

 

“I’ll worry about gathering a team, since they report to me, and you can see to the tasks I’ll assign you,” Nick informed him. Steve frowned as he scrutinised the bald man at the head of the table. The sudden figurative misstep into a minefield was a reminder that this was a reality that they did not know.

 

“Did I just get demoted?” Steve asked slowly.

 

“No, you’re just deemed a liability presently,” Nick answered simply. “Two zombies having existential crises should definitely not be at the helm when their loyalties have yet to be fully tested and there’s an unknown enemy lurking and possibly about to strike at any time or place.”

 

“Just for clarity’s sake, how are we expected to contribute if we’re limited in what we’re allowed to do?” Natasha questioned.

 

“You do what I tell you to do- as usual,” Fury instructed with a smile that did not reach his eyes.

 

“So we’ve been demoted,” Steve confirmed, and then added, “temporarily.”

 

“Steve and Natasha, you can take over the search for Stark,” Maria interjected with an annoyed sigh. Steve balked at the level of irritation with Fury she was openly showing, but he redirected his attention to her instruction. “It’ll be relatively low-tech compared to what we’re used to. Naturally Tony’s trying to hide and he’s had ages to plan a possible escape protocol i.e. since he first started working with S.H.I.E.L.D. Unfortunately, he’s never trusted me enough to reveal any real secret hideaways and Sam is- was so honourable that he’d never tell. If Tony had trusted me, then we wouldn’t have to search the whole fucking globe one quadrant at a time. Thank you, Nick Fury.”

 

Nick pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes at Maria, who remained unperturbed.

 

“Was Tony in contact with Banner?” Natasha asked calmly. The question had Steve’s heart breaking out into a stumbling plod. “It might be easier to find him if the two of them are together.”

 

“Banner’s not available,” Nick answered flatly.

 

“How is that an answer?” Natasha questioned testily.

 

“That translates to ‘above your current security clearance’,” Agent 13 interjected with a smirk. Natasha’s head whipped around to face the blonde woman across the table and the tense vibes that had manifested when Agent 13 had walked into the room congealed once more between the two women.   

 

“Maria, Nat, one of you please punch her in the face because that was unnecessarily bitchy,” Jane remarked casually from a console bank in the corner where she was typing away while studying a holographic fluctuating purple blob. The assembled company swivelled their heads to take in the petite brunette who had remained quiet thus far. She looked up at them questioningly. “What? 13 is annoying and rude- she’s always muttering under her breath or shooting condescending looks at people. We don’t have time for that.”

 

“Any word on whether the Bartons have reached a refugee centre?” Natasha asked, changing the subject decisively.

 

“They haven’t been processed yet according to the databases that we’re able to access,” Maria answered.

 

“Please keep us informed on that,” Natasha requested. Maria linked them to an update alert list and quickly demonstrated the search process that Natasha and Steve would be using. The pair sat at a console that looked out towards the moon and stars, and began combing through the maps and data in front of them methodically looking for any sign of Tony or his recent passage through the area.

 

“This is what we wanted to be doing anyway, right?” Steve murmured. He looked up through his lashes at Natasha, who nodded twice in reply.

 

“We’ll talk about… the other stuff later, okay?” Natasha told him quietly. Steve regarded her for a few moments, and observed that their son had her eyes- at least according to the pictures he had found in the wallet he’d taken from the kitchen of Natasha’s- _their_ Avengers’ Tower apartment.

 

Carefully choosing his words, Steve replied: “I don’t want to not have the time to talk about it.”

 

“I’m going to say ugly raw things that I don’t want to be analysed by people I don’t know or trust,” Natasha explained calmly. She lifted her gaze to look him directly in the eye briefly before her attention returned to their task. The people in the background, whom the redhead had referred to, lingered, debating strategies and incoming data. The hairs on the back of Steve’s neck told him that their conversation was becoming increasingly tense, and the head trio departed for private discussions. A glance shared with Natasha told him he’d be right to conclude that they couldn’t relax outside of their hosts’ physical presence. Instead, Steve immersed himself in the work before him.

 

Looking for Tony and little James proved frustrating and emotionally harrowing. As they examined each quadrant, Steve and Natasha were able to see some of the devastation left behind after the attack. Missile-guiding systems had malfunctioned and there were quite a few unexpected craters devastating the landscape. It left a chilling disconnection in the centre of Steve’s being to see places he had been to in only the past few months completely flattened to scorched earth. He wondered if anyone had survived. He couldn’t see any signs of refugees, but he hoped it was because of the limited satellite coverage they had access to.

 

Steve knew from experience that it would be practically impossible to find anything to spark hope in the survivors in the pit of such tragedy. He knew Natasha would know that too, but he also knew that she’d pick herself up and continue on no matter how deep the fissures on her psyche. He’d known that about her from the moment they met all those years ago. She’d adapted with nary a complaint to the chaos that breaking her out from The Hand facility she was being held in spurred.  

 

And she had smiled- genuinely too- despite all the things, the things her thick, old Red Room file clinically noted, she’d lived through before they had ever met. Natalia smiled with heart, with purity you couldn’t ever fake. When he had confirmed for himself that Natasha was indeed the Natalia he had met in 1942 and made use of his security clearance to go through the hard-won unabridged hard copies of Natalia Alianova Romanova’s Red Room records, Steve had believed that her life had ensured that Natasha’s smiles could only ever be mostly contrived. It was bewildering, but there was no way that Steve could outwardly react. It would be uncouth to point out to someone who held themselves at a distance that one knew their smiles were insincere. That is until Steve saw Natasha smile as wholeheartedly as she had as Natalia.

 

It hadn’t even been a smile directed at him: She’d been smirking jokingly at Clint who been on his phone while they met with the rest of the Avengers team at Tony’s ruined apartment in the aftermath of an attack on Earth years ago. Natasha had been listening to his call and she had bumped the dark blond man’s shoulder with hers before snatching his phone away to butt in on the call. Before she turned away and walked off onto Tony’s balcony, Steve glimpsed her bright smile and something re-ignited in him. In hindsight Steve guessed she must have been talking to a young Cooper, or perhaps Laura.

 

One little smile and Steve knew he was screwed. It was different from wishing he could and endeavouring to get Peggy to smile- somehow so very different. Peggy smiled when she approved, when she was excited by some new piece of information that would help her achieve her aims. When Peggy smiled Steve knew he was making some headway into her heart, even if it was at a snail’s pace.

 

Natasha’s smiles were addictive. At first he thought it was perhaps it was because they were so rare. Then Steve realised that he got that exhilarating trill whirling around his heart whenever she truly smiled because it meant that she was fully there emotionally present in the moment and connected to whomever the smile was directed at. He loved when it was directed at him. When it was him, he knew it meant she trusted him enough to do away with the mask she shielded herself with. When it was him, she was letting him in past all the extra defences no one else he had ever known had. And it was magic once you were allowed into Natasha’s realm. It didn’t matter that most times one was only welcome for a couple of seconds, because it was like time slowed there. And then Steve had found that he’d become her friend, which meant that although he got kicked out when Natasha had had enough he still had an access pass that got him back in repeatedly. She smiled more true smiles around him.

 

All of that made him often wonder in the empty quiet hours of the night, when he couldn’t sleep, what would have happened if he’d been able to punch his way out of the cockpit of the plane he’d crashed into the ocean. Steve had made plans to dance with Peggy, but he’d also planned to try and follow up on the people he’d met during the war. He’d needed to visit graves if there were any, and find satisfaction in the fact that hope was restored to those that survived. He’d always known that his choice to fight to protect others was right, but that was somewhat of an impersonal ideal. Meeting people, looking into their eyes, assured him that he wasn’t just a former underdog drunk on power and addicted to having his way over life and death. If he made a difference in someone’s life and brought them closer to happiness, then he was at least going to Purgatory and not straight to Hell.

 

If he’d gotten out of that cockpit, would he have found the redheaded Russian girl who was formed to dance? According to her, she’d be a brunette solely because of him and the temptation for evil that the power in his veins posed. But Steve wondered if she’d still dance and smile because she loved her art. Steve recalled the one and only time Natasha had demonstrated her passion for dance to him. It had been in the midst of the grey ruins of Stalingrad during a lull in the fighting.

_“You sketch?” the young girl’s lively voice asked from right behind him. Steve was surprised that he had not heard the fourteen year old girl come up behind him as he sat on a collection of brick and stone that was marginally less serrated than the rest of the debris. He’d wandered to the outskirts of their camp and away from the forced joviality the Howling Commandos dipped into whenever they had had a particularly death-filled day. He needed a moment to himself to blank out all the feelings roiling inside him and the best way for Steve to do that was to draw. The scenery was drab, and the afternoon light dreary but that didn’t stop Steve from sitting with his sketchbook and pencil in hand._

_Despite being a Russian schoolgirl, Natalia had a great grasp on the English language and only had a very slight accent. Natalia Romanova sounded more like Peggy Carter than Steve could imitate. But he’d supposed that was the result of being a student of an elite school in a driven land like the USSR seemed to be._

_“A bit,” Steve replied with a small embarrassed smile. Natalia leaned over his shoulder and tilted her head at him. She frowned slowly. A few wisps of bright red curls were escaping from under the handkerchief she’d covered her hair with. Her eyes were the sort of green that Steve knew would fluctuate between the shades of a forest at the beginning of fall and, on occasion, flash blue under the right kind of light._

_“If it was just ‘a bit’, then you’d have a poor sense of scale, Captain. Your hand is trained. This is your art,” Natalia reasoned. This little girl was rather astute._

_“It is,” Steve chuckled. He expected her to ask if she could see the rest of his sketches as people tended to do whenever they discovered that he drew, but she said nothing. Before he lost his grip on his adulthood and drowned in awkwardness with a smothered yelp as the silence grew longer, Steve asked: “Would you like to see the rest?”_

_Natalia crouched on the rock beside him and looked into his face. Hesitantly she replied: “If I could, I’d rather see the process, please.”_

_Steve blinked at the request and felt the first trembling clamour of protest flutter in his gut._

_“It’s just that I’ve never seen someone who actually has a passion for this pursuit work,” Natalia explained while she looked away as colour suffused in her cheeks. “At school, we have drawing lessons to help us be more rounded but no one in my class particularly likes it.”_

_“You dance, right?” Steve confirmed. He’d had trouble reasoning why a guild of assassins would kidnap a young ballerina for recruitment purposes, but her father Ivan had explained that the elite school’s curriculum encompassed some military training. That’s just the way it was since it was a state school founded after the revolution. Apparently the dance and gymnastics foundation that Natalia had received would translate well to assassin’s training._

_“A lot,” Natalia replied with a smirk. Steve grinned in response. Natalia turned her eyes to the stumps of buildings that poked out from the ground before them and sighed deeply. “I miss it. I danced ballet, but you can’t really keep it up in this. Don’t have the shoes for it anyway.”_

_Steve looked down at her feet which were clad in combat boots. They must have been the smallest size available and yet they still looked too big on the slight girl._

_“If this ever ends, I’m going to dance in the Bolshoi,” Natalia vowed quietly. “If there’s a Bolshoi…”_

_“If not, then you’ll just have to come to New York,” Steve reasoned sympathetically._

_“That new ‘Ballet Theatre’?” Natalia mused._

_“You’ve heard of it?” Steve enquired in mild wonder. A few of the USO girls he’d toured with still wrote to him and they had made mention of the ballet company in the few letters that got through to him. Some of them had classical dreams but had to make do with the razzle dazzle of being a showgirl. It seemed that artists gossiped about the developments in their field no matter what end of the globe they were on._

_Natalia replied with a smirk: “But the Bolshoi would be best.”_

_“You’ll be their prima ballerina wherever you go,” Steve encouraged._

_“You haven’t even seen me dance,” Natalia laughed._

_“Then do something for me- a move- and I’ll sketch you,” Steve suggested. The little redhead seemed taken aback. Confusion and hesitation flitted over her features before she broke out into a smile and agreed with a nod. She leapt up with alacrity and flitted over to a clearing in the ruins. Natalia dragged her foot to sweep bits of junk away and freed up a small spot._

_“I’m rusty, so don’t laugh if I look terrible,” Natalia excused as she unlaced a boot and tugged it off. She set her shoes and socks to one side and took up a position in the middle of the small clearing. “Ugh, this dust under my feet is really gritty.”_

_Despite her griping she stood gracefully. Suddenly it was as though a spring had been tightly wound within her and she elucidated: “Pirouettes then. My toes will be cut up, but this is not too much.”_

_The unseen spring was released and the girl whirled in place, her head whipping around as she spotted to keep herself steady. She kept at it, revolving more than the few times Steve had thought she would, and as she continued her smile grew. Bold, sure brushstrokes would be needed to paint an impression of her graceful limbs as she spun. Watercolour would be best to capture her fluidity. Pencils would have to do in their war-torn landscape. The inadequate choice of medium niggled at Steve: this girl’s simple demonstration was so much more vibrant than the colour plates of Rodin’s ballerinas that he had seen had been._

_Natalia came to an elegant stop and Steve beckoned her over as he began on her sketch. Natalia scooped up her boots and skipped over to him. She crouched close, pulling on and lacing up her boots as she observed Steve sketch. The usual awkward shyness that accompanied drawing while under concentrated observation was absent as Steve absorbed himself in the task at hand. He pulled out one of his precious colour pencils and showed it to Natalia in passing before he placed the nib against the paper of his sketchbook._

_“Red for the skirt- I’m imagining what it would be,” Steve explained as he embellished his drawing._

_“A tutu,” Natalia offered._

_“Yes, a tutu,” Steve repeated. “Rich and bold like they say the Bolshoi is.”_

_“It is bold,” Natalia laughed._

_“Then it’s the right place for you,” Steve observed as he shaded Natalia’s tutu and her matching hair._

_“It’s… alive,” Natalia remarked as Steve finished up the sketch. She looked up at him and smiled brightly. “Thank you for letting me see this.”_

_“Would you like to keep it?” Steve offered._

_“No, you keep it, please. You won’t forget me or our adventure then,” Natalia insisted._

_“I wouldn’t forget,” Steve assured her._

_“Let me at least pretend you see me as a grown-up and not a child,” Natalia implored. “The only memento I could spare you is some gauze or a shoelace, and I’d be hard-pressed if I let that go.”_

_Steve tried not to blush ridiculously, but his unsettlement had to erupt in another manner: a strangled, nervous laugh was emitted from his throat, which he quickly disguised with a blustery cough. He still had no idea what to do with women’s admiration and he certainly had no clue what to about the affections of a young girl. A young girl who would probably be a young woman before this nightmare of a war was over, as Bucky liked to remind him. Steve really didn’t want to break her heart and crush her spirit unnecessarily- not in the times they were in._

_“I’ll keep the sketch, and I definitely won’t forget you, Miss Natalia,” Steve promised._

_Steve lost that particular sketchbook along with his colour pencils in a fire while trying to slip through Naples that December as the Americans began bombing Mainland Italy. But he didn’t forget._

 

Steve shook himself out of that moment of reminiscence to focus back on his surroundings and the work in front of him. Natasha seemed to be taking a break too, gazing out into the pitch black of space. With the memory of the girl he didn’t want to hurt still lingering at the edges of his mind’s eye, Steve found it ironic, as he habitually was reminded, that the tables had turned and the redheaded woman frequently had his heart trapped under a slow-crushing press of rejection. Or rather, he put his own heart between those figurative clamps and turned the wheel to help hurt himself.   

 

“Do the stars hurt?” Natasha mumbled into the side of her palm as she leaned against her hand. Her right elbow was propped up on the table surface, and her left forearm lay flat. The fingertips of her left hand spread out loosely before her right elbow and the gemstones on her wedding and engagement rings just caught enough light to glimmer subtly.

 

“Erm… huh?” Steve enquired, feigning having not properly heard her. Natasha’s words were illogical, but Steve was distracted by the confusing reminders nestled on the ring fingers of their left hands. He wondered if it was strange that the metal band around his finger felt like it exuded some kind of demanding energy. He decided that it was probably just his fanciful imagination.

 

“We pay attention to the spectacular struggles of their beginnings and endings, but their ‘regular lives’…” Natasha mused quietly. “Well, most people would find it monotonous and boring, right? Especially since stars live for millions of years. It’s kind of like the daily existence of an average person, whatever that is. Somehow we got picked out to be labelled as ‘extraordinary’, but we’re just the same as everybody else, right? We don’t notice pain if we’re not looking right at it, sometimes we don’t notice it if we’re not looking for it… I just wonder if the stars feel and we just don’t see it.”

 

There she was- that insightful soul Steve had met all those years ago. Steve had figured, that at least for him, the question ‘what is art?’ was answered in the reply: art is both question and understanding. The ends of his mouth itched to curl upwards for the artist that lived buried within Natasha and with whom he’d connected so long ago was still alive here in this elsewhere. She didn’t dance for an audience with the modest joy she found difficult to contain; instead Steve could see her revealed in the way she saw and contemplated the universe. Natalia was both question and understanding and so was the Natasha seated next to him.

 

“I think that’s highly unlikely,” Jane interjected from the corner of the room, where she was still busy with her experiments and calculations. Steve had almost forgotten she was there- the woman had blended into her work so entirely. “Unless, of course, stars had rather mild emotions. Because if you look at them not as these giant objects, but pared them down to a relatable size, then all the wild flares would just be tiny blips. All the intelligent beings I’ve encountered thus far have quick, complex and extreme ranges of emotion. But, I guess we can’t say that nothing is impossible, only improbable.”

 

“Jane,” Natasha began carefully, “these space endeavours that Logan and Banner are involved in, they wouldn’t have any bearing on the situation we find ourselves in right now, would they?”

 

“I couldn’t say,” Jane answered after a moment’s reflection. “We’re not in direct contact- and I shouldn’t be telling you that.”

 

“And what about what happened to Steve and me physically?” Natasha continued, ignoring Jane’s hesitation.

 

“Personally, I think that’s a whole separate puzzle,” Jane stated. “I’m trying to ascertain whether there are any links to recent events, but obviously that’s a secondary concern to figuring out what the hell we’re up against.”

 

“Everyone I’m supposed to love is out there in the midst of this unknown,” Natasha stated. The words uttered hooked into Steve’s lungs and the mechanics of breathing was forgotten. “They’re defenceless and I can’t physically protect them.”

 

“Yeah,” Jane agreed quietly as she gazed off thoughtfully for a moment before returning to her work.

 

Steve knew he should not have focused on Natasha’s words- it really wasn’t the time to be analysing the flotsam and jetsam of convoluted emotions he was currently wading through- but he couldn’t help it. Nothing Natasha said was ever flippant. All her words had reasons. It was her Avengers’ Tower apartment- _their_ apartment all over again: the other Steve and Natalia’s apartment. The churning incredulity at her disbelief and rejection bubbled up once more and something inside Steve wanted to snap. But that viscous heat was quickly overtaken by the familiar crush of accepting that his reality didn’t resemble the secret wish he hid in the bottom of his heart and the disappointment in himself for foolishly daring to hope.

 

“You’re not you when you’re hungry, Steve,” Natasha remarked in a familiar sing-song tone. “Snack break.”

 

Steve yanked himself out of his self-pity to play along with the banter. He narrowed his eyes in mock annoyance and arched a brow disapprovingly. Snack breaks were Natasha-code for mini asides in which the pair of them would discuss their personal views away from the noise of other opinions.

 

“You didn’t finish your pasta- and neither did I,” Natasha elucidated innocently.

 

“There’s a snack station in the viewing deck off that door,” Jane indicated with a wave to the door to the right of Steve. “Coffee comes out three star, but it’s palatable if you’re desperate.”

 

“I’ve literally drank dirty dishwater before, I think I can handle it,” Natasha replied as she stood and headed towards the door that Jane had indicated. Steve gave Jane an odd little smile and wave, but she seemed to have only barely noticed his departure as staccato fluctuations were occurring in the holographic graph she was focused on.

 

Steve’s step and breath faltered as he entered the viewing deck. The room the snack station was located in was afforded with a panoramic view looking out into the star-crammed crisp dark of space. A full-length window extended to include some of the ceiling and floor so that viewers could have the sensation of being suspended in space if they stepped close to the pane. It was a visual feast more overwhelming than leaving Earth had been.  

 

“Frikkin’ kale chips? Beetroot chips too,” Natasha muttered on the other side of the room. Her back was turned to the vista and she was examining the menu panel of the snack station. “I’ll bet Blonde-azon stocked the vending machines. There’s probably organic Norwegian seaweed-infused coconut water somewhere down the list.”

 

“Please try to not hit her,” Steve sighed in resignation as he tore his eyes away from the spectacular dark kaleidoscope outside framed like an inverted canvas across the room.

 

Natasha’s head snapped to direct her tilted face towards him as she glared through narrowed eyes.

 

“I already did,” the redhead admitted curtly. Steve’s eyes widened incrementally and Natasha’s narrowed further in response. Her hand shot out to jab at the menu screen and a little bell sounded as the machine acknowledged the choice and dispensed her selection. Natasha did not break eye contact as she chucked a packet at Steve: He looked down to discover that it was chocolate-covered dried squid. Steve knew that Natasha knew that Steve never wasted food. From time to time she’d amuse herself by handing him atrocious sounding dishes. Ninety five percent of the time they proved to be vile tasting.

 

“Aside from gastronomic torture,” Steve began as he procrastinated by attempting to read the ingredients list of the snack packet (it was just his luck that it seemed to be in Japanese and he had never finished learning the characters), “what’s on your mind?”

 

“What’s not on my mind?” Natasha replied tiredly. She reached up to run her fingers through her hair, stopped a few inches from her roots and carefully detangled her fingers from her curls as she rolled her eyes. Steve figured the gesture was a vestige of being used to her recent years of having straightened hair. “You’re on my mind. James is on my mind. Whatever the fuck is happening to us is on my mind. Everything that’s happened to Sam, Clint, Maria, Laura and the kids is what I’m trying to block from my mind. Shadows of the past keep muddling things further.”

 

“I can understand,” Steve commiserated as he slowly tore open the snack packet. He turned to take a seat at the long bar mounted against the wall, and positioned himself to take in the view afforded by the window. Steve picked up one of the chocolate covered dried squids by its confectionary-free end and held it up to examine the details of its structure closely.

 

“The only thing we’ve learned is that Banner might be off-world along with Logan,” Natasha sighed while she pressed her index finger several times on the snack station’s selection panel. Just the mention of the other guy’s name from her lips unprompted did something to transform the regular ease in Steve’s back muscles into constricting tension. Natasha never brought the missing Avengers team mate up. Steve forced himself to inhale deep and exhale long.

 

“What’s on your mind?” Natasha repeated the question back at him as she placed several more snack items on the bar behind him and leaned against the counter as she regarded Steve.

 

“Worries and regrets,” Steve answered after a moment’s ponder.

 

“Like what?” Natasha asked softly.

 

“I’m worried about the whole concept of James. We have photos and evidence, but he still seems like an abstract in my mind,” Steve admitted. “And I don’t like that.”

 

“You mean you feel guilty about that?” Natasha clarified. “I do too. I really do.”

 

“I probably would be a really bad father- I don’t even know what the hell I’d be compared to this other Steve, the one who broke his…” Steve paused to finally eat the small blob of dried squid dipped in chocolate. “I mean I wouldn’t be cruel or anything, I’d never… I guess I just know I’d be a disappointment.”

 

“Clint left Nathan in his stroller in the parking lot of Lila and Cooper’s school. He just drove off, having forgotten about him,” Natasha revealed monotonously. “Of course he came back about two minutes later, but do you think he was a bad father?”

 

“No! Clint’s awesome,” Steve exclaimed. He hesitated as he realised he hadn’t used the appropriate tense but then soldiered on to elaborate: “Clint was like that beacon of hope that shows that it can be done. People like us can have-” Steve grimaced as he struggled with the wording “- a home life.”

 

“All that matters Steve, is that you think you’re capable of loving him,” Natasha declared. Steve looked into her serious hazel green eyes, understanding her question without it being worded.

 

“I know I am,” Steve asserted.

 

“I know you are,” Natasha reiterated with a faint sliver of a smile. She inhaled deeply and took a seat facing the wall.

 

“You actual-” Natasha began before she was interrupted by Steve firmly putting his hands on her shoulders and spinning her in her seat around to face the window vista.

 

“Nat, it’s _space_ ,” Steve reasoned when she raised her eyebrows at him in affronted enquiry. Steve went back to his dried squid, before adding the command: “Look. This is not ‘exit points and strategic repurposing for weapons use’. Just look at… what little we can comprehend of infinity.”

 

Natasha settled back into her seat and reached for the cup of deep crimson hibiscus tea she’d selected as her beverage.

 

“As I was saying, you definitely remind me of my father,” Natasha resumed after she took a sip and returned the cup to the bar behind them.

 

“Ivan? How?” Steve queried in a slightly puzzled tone as he reached behind Natasha for the bottled water she’d selected for him. Natasha shook her head in the negative.

 

“Fedya… Fyodor Alexeyevich,” Natasha whispered as she gazed out into the vastness beyond. “Ivan adopted me, but Fedya was like my father too- perhaps more so.”

 

As he took a swig from the bottle he had uncapped Steve mentally ran through the list of names that appeared in connection with Natasha’s training in her Red Room file and came up with the name of one of her early tutors: Fyodor Alexeyevich Volkov. Not much was mentioned about him, but there were quite a few notes commenting on Natalia’s training written by him. He was always implementing ‘better methods tailored to the protégé’.  

 

“He wasn’t just a trainer, but one of our best,” Natasha informed him. Her voice was as nonchalant as he’d ever heard it but something about Natasha was detached and somewhere else. “The Nazi’s killed him. Well, HYDRA did.”

 

From what Steve remembered, Volkov’s notes stopped in 1938. Natalia was only ten. Steve’s own father had died when he was a baby and he did not have any recollection of the man, despite wishing that he at least had an impression to hold dear. He had felt the lack of his father’s presence as he grew up and it saddened and sometimes angered him, but he couldn’t fathom the confusing pain of going through the loss of a parent at such a young age. When his mother passed on, Steve could at least tell himself that he was technically already a man and no longer a child. He was old enough to look after himself. But for Natalia, the everyday presence that guided her and, from what his gut told him, she loved was suddenly ripped from her while she was trying to survive the never-ending gauntlet of life in the Red Room.

 

“In spite of what he was, and what he did, and what he could never say clearly, I knew that he cared. It was the Red Room, and he was hard on me, but he was also safety, sanity and someone I could look up to,” Natasha continued. She had slipped into Russian a few words into what she described. “You’ll always be someone James can look up to Steve, and like I said, I know you could love him.”  

 

The impulse to put his arm around her shoulder to pull her close and offer comfort tugged strongly at Steve, but doing so seemed awkward and wrong after their confrontation earlier. It seemed caddish and callous after what Steve had mentally chastised himself for. But too quickly the moment to act passed as Natasha recovered herself, ducked her head and reached for the contents of his snack packet to pull out a dried squid.

 

“These have a somewhat moreish quality to them,” Natasha remarked with mild surprise as she chewed through her first dried squid and reached for another. She had slipped back into the mundane so easily, and Steve both loved and hated that ability of hers. Every single time he thought he had her with him, and that they could communicate with uninhibited honesty- because they were ordinarily honest with each other but favoured omission heavily in what they told- she just slipped from his grasp with the ease of silk satin ribbon gliding off of fingertips. The sensation was meant to be an easy transition so they could ‘forget’ the difficult painful things they were dealing with, but for Steve, who had become so emotionally invested despite all his attempts not to, it was jarring.

 

“Regrets,” Steve blurted, responding to Natasha in the native tongue she maintained, “I also have regrets.”

 

Natasha continued smoothly with chewing the dried squid and examining the extra squid waiting to be eaten in her hand. But Steve could feel it: the swirl of negative hesitation he always sensed from her whenever he toed the line of what was socially acceptable for a friend. He placed his snack and beverage on the counter behind them and squared up to face her in his seat.

 

“I regret telling you what I feel the way I did,” Steve stated with as much conviction as he could muster. Natasha turned her head sharply to scrutinise him in surprise. “I regret forcing my emotions on you. I apologise for that. It wasn’t right. It definitely wasn’t the appropriate time. I should have been sensible enough to respect the signals that you utilised to try to kindly show me that that was not what you wanted.”

 

“Steven,” Natasha griped in exhaustion. “Don’t say shit like that.”

 

“Nat, I get it,” Steve assured her. He paused for a moment before he continued carefully. “I’m not what you need in that capacity.”

 

“Steeeeeve,” Natasha groaned as she dropped her head to rub at her scrunched closed eyes with the heel of her palm. “Stop- just stop! What did I say about ears I don’t want hearing our personal shit?!”

 

“But part of me is a jerk, okay?” Steve pushed on. “And I need to know- just in case this is Purgatory- and I have to understand what it is I didn’t get, what I didn’t see that was actually the lesson.”

 

Natasha’s head flopped up to scowl at him incredulously.

 

Steve laboured against the heavy writhing anxiety snaking from the pit of him to his fingertips and toes and quietly asked: “Why? … I want to know why.”

 

“What?” Natasha asked hoarsely.

 

Steve inhaled deeply before he began with a slight tremor in his voice which quickly levelled out into a sincere plea.

 

“The last time… with Peggy, I was a waste of her attention. I was a disappointment, following orders to waste the gifts I’d been given and I too easily gave up. I shirked my responsibilities. I went along with what was wrong and colluded in a kind of selfishness- my own and the government’s unwillingness to let what I had in my veins fall into enemy hands even if it meant loss of life when I could have helped prevent that. I wasn’t a man yet, I was a kid growing up and Peggy had better things to do than wait for me to man up. I took too long. So please tell me what I can do to be better. Because you said ‘no’ and I want to know what is ‘no’ about me. I know if I change it that I can’t expect you to say ‘yes’ because it’s your choice and I may still be a ‘no’. Still I want to try to understand why… why I can never get this right.”

 

“Why would you tell them that?” Natasha asked quietly as she gestured with a swirling finger vaguely at the possible cameras and listening equipment hidden in their midst.

 

“Because I saw you die twice in the past twenty four hours. I saw myself die and I don’t think they could conjure up any worse shit than what we’re currently wading through trying to look for someone who belongs to a life I’d only invent in my most taunting dreams, Nat,” Steve explained dejectedly.    

 

“Steve, I would be bad for you,” Natasha stated bluntly.

 

“I don’t believe that,” Steve insisted. “But I know I’m not what you want so that debate is pointless.”

 

“Even when I distance myself from you, Steve, I am bad for you,” Natasha argued, slipped off her seat and stalked over to the large window pane, “and that is the conclusion to this!”

 

“How on Earth is it ‘bad for me’ to love you? How is it ‘bad for me’ to even just be your friend? To be there for you, huh?” Steve rattled off as his frustration bubbled over. Natasha’s gesture of putting physical distance between them irked him to irrational levels of exasperation. What did she think he was going to do- or rather what was it that she was going to do to him if she felt the need to be on the other end of the room? His bid to find some sort of cathartic resolution in their quagmire of emotional subtext was disintegrating with each passing second in their exchange.

 

“Because I was fucking designed to be your weakness, Steve!” Natasha yelled as she spun around to eviscerate him with her eyes. Her voice dropped to a low vicious hiss: “For fuck’s sake, you’ve been talking to me in Russian for the last while, following my lead from a simple prompt because you _want_ to appeal to me, _you_ want to see to _my_ needs and _that_ is the power I was moulded to have _over you_ specifically.”

 

Steve paused and glowered at Natasha for a tense moment before he slowly replied- in Russian: “I know that I’m speaking Russian. Speaking Russian does not make me guilty of treason.”

 

“That would’ve been debatable in the McCarthy Era,” Natasha shot back snidely in English.  

 

“Is this the McCarthy Era?” Steve asked with a sarcastic sneer as he followed her in her switch between languages.

 

“You think I’m paranoid because you trust me too much,” Natasha stated coolly as she straightened up. Steve’s face slackened and his eyes fell to his feet.

 

“I already hate the part of me that forgot to have faith in you, Natasha,” he admitted quietly. Steve glanced up and met Natasha’s gaze. She stared at him, blinking rapidly before she shrugged off her momentary fluster.

 

“Very well, if you want to talk about the ugly things then let’s have at it,” Natasha breathed with a cynical chuckle. “I’ve already told you the gist of what the Red Room planned concerning you, but that’s just it: the gist. You don’t understand the enormity of the gamble they placed on me. It hardly mattered whether I was the best in my class anymore- I was, but it became expected. My whole purpose became the mission to ensnare you and convert you. It would have been the sweetest victory for them: having you, your country’s living human symbol of patriotism, slowly change the public’s opinion. They wanted you to spread the Revolution, to make a new colony that answered to The Kremlin.

 

“And I looked forward to the mission I was moulded for like none I have ever been given since. I looked forward to it because… maybe I could make you love me. Maybe I could break away and live something normal or perhaps even a fairy tale. But it was a naïve fancy, and I even knew it was back then: Hollow nonsense fantasy where I imagined I had the freedom and worth to make the man I had a girlhood crush on buy me more Lilly Daché hats than I knew what to do with.

 

“They’d get to me. I’d get to you. They’d make you believe a whole new ideology fed to you through the words coming from my mouth, solidified by every touch that was just right.

 

“Sooner or later they’d make me bind you to me with blood. There would’ve been no Kudrin Treatment for me- no chemical sterilization or tying of my tubes. They’d want something better. Maybe they’d retro-engineer Erskine’s serum from studying your fresh blood and put it my veins. They’d want to keep their asset ‘happy’, which equates to ‘compliant’ in the Red Room dictionary. And you’d do anything for your wife and children, now wouldn’t you Steve? I know the man you were, and so did my superiors- of course you would. I’m the one who would’ve led you to the slaughtering block. I’d have held you down with a kiss while they cleaved the parts of your spirit that make you ‘you’ from your soul.”

 

“But you crashed, Steve,” Natasha stated softly as she stepped back into his space as he remained seated on his barstool. Her fingertips brushed over his forearms as they rested on his thighs and she bowed her head to watch her gentle back and forth actions for a moment. It was instinctual for Steve to settle his grasp around Natasha’s hips. The redhead stepped closer and tilted her head up to Steve before her hazel green gaze flicked up to meet his. The look in her long-lashed eyes was a delicate blend of sombreness and vulnerability.

 

“Still it would have worked- I know it would have because it did,” Natasha told him. Steve’s breathing hitched, and it had very little to do with the way Natasha’s fingers had settled into a lulling circular caress in the crooks of his elbows. The leeching fog of the shadow of another guy, the guy he couldn’t ever hate because he loved him as his brother, rose up from behind him. Natasha leaned closer. “If they couldn’t subvert a hero, they’d grow one of their own.”

 

Steve frowned at her words. He wasn’t following what she meant. His best friend had told him he remembered it _all_ \- it was a subversion.

 

“Heroes can only ever have romantic stories,” Natasha elucidated, “that is, if you want them to be legends. He embodied everything the Nation valued on paper: he grew up the way we wanted our children to grow up, he achieved what our dreams were and I already knew how to handle a _hero_ and guide him into doing exactly what the Red Room wanted. Because heroes themselves need their stories to be romantic.”

 

“It’s almost alarming how similar you are to each other,” Natasha remarked as she cocked her head to the side and searched Steve’s eyes. “Same height, same build, same need to give more than he had to change the world for what he believed was the better, blue eyes with a touch of green in them. Only his hair was red- my ex-husband, Alexei.”

 

Cold, hot, disorientation plummeted to the bottom of Steve’s stomach and sunk below into the abyss he felt like he was perched precariously above. It wasn’t the name he expected. He forced himself to blink and breathe, if only just so that he could steel himself for what he was sure was worse news to come.

 

“The Red Guardian,” Steve understood. The disconnect of having her in his grasp, with two rings on the third finger of her left hand, but having already been previously committed in something that was so meaningful in his books was disquieting. He’d seen the name ‘Alexei Shostakov’ in her files and had read the files on the Red Guardian that Peggy’s protocol instructions had allowed him clearance for. If Steve had been awake when the Red Guardian had been most active, they two would have been pitted against each other as adversaries by their governments and their respective media machines. Still, there was a man before the Russian _super_ hero was born of DNA-enhancing serum. Practically everything in Natasha’s unabridged Red Room file on that man had been redacted. Steve had known the pair had been married for a few years, but knew nothing of their relationship. The S.H.I.E.L.D. analysis that accompanied the files had been that it was all just for show, for prestige. No one had asked the woman in front of him her take on her own life.

 

“I was his reward, but really I was the bait,” Natasha smiled wryly as her eyes glazed with unknown memories. In a whisper, she remarked: “I knew from the beginning that it would ruin some part of me.” Her focus returned to Steve’s face as she pursed her lips and then allowed a small smile to form on them. She inhaled deeply and somehow Steve felt she was closer in his embrace; he was entranced by the sensation of her curves against his body.

 

“It’s not just a Red Room ploy, you know,” Natasha disclosed insouciantly. Her steady regard made Steve feel almost weightless, which was rather ironic since being in space hadn’t made him experience that sensation thus far. Steve flexed his fingers and tightened his grip on her hips. The urge to slide his arms around her waist and shift his grasp behind her and lower was incessant. It increased exponentially as Natasha smoothed her hands up his biceps to rest on his shoulders.

 

“S.H.I.E.L.D. found you and then you were my mission again, Steve.” Natasha held his gaze unflinchingly as the confusing words left her mouth. “If the Red Room had found you- or HYDRA even- I’d have expected to have to resume my first assignment. It was foolish of me not to anticipate the same demands from S.H.I.E.L.D. I refused. The parameters given were never to just check up on you and chit-chat, Steve. If I’d have been your blonde nurse, I wouldn’t have just been the neighbour you saw every now and then. I refused for both our sanities. By then, I’d lived long enough to know you could easily become my weakness. I already knew how to be yours.”

 

The heavy silence stung his skin and weighted his lungs.

 

“Did you know it was her?” Steve finally asked measuredly.

 

“Would you believe me, if I answered you?” Natasha countered.

 

Steve swallowed with difficulty, barely wetting his dry throat. “Yes.”

 

The peculiar sensation that accompanied Natasha’s assessment of his truthfulness made him want to squirm as it always did.

 

“I’ve learned that not trusting you feels wrong,” Steve continued.

 

“Doesn’t mean it’s not right,” Natasha muttered.

 

“I don’t believe that,” Steve challenged.

 

“Which is what makes you dangerous- to me,” Natasha maintained. “I knew you were watched, but I didn’t know who she was. Their choice in candidate was… I hadn’t signed up with S.H.I.E.L.D. to give them that much power over you- it’s just not something anyone should do. Their covert ruthless cloying for power should have garnered my attention sooner, but I have the horrible habit of ignoring my wounds. Sometimes trying to convince yourself that you aren’t a demon blinds you to recognising other devils.”

 

Her fingers played over the edge of his shoulders and Natasha’s gaze hardened into a glare.

 

“Look at how you’ve let me crawl under your skin, Steve,” Natasha pointed out coldly. “Already wrapping me up in your arms and leaning into my touch even though I’m obviously bad for you.”

 

She began to clinically remove herself from his grasp. But he wasn’t ready to let go, and fumbled for her wrist. A second too late, he had to follow her all the way to the pane of glass separating them from the stellar view. Even as he curled his fingers around her forearm, he berated himself for doing the wrong thing once again for surely Natasha would twist his arm. Steve tried to keep his touch as gentle as possible. And maybe it worked, because Natasha merely paused in her escape and looked at him with a somewhat softened expression.

 

“To answer your question: there’s nothing wrong with you, Steve,” she assured him. “There’s something wrong with me.”

 

“I wish you didn’t think that,” Steve told her as he succumbed to the drive to have Natasha back close. He braced his right hand against the floor to ceiling glass just above her head of curly red hair and was slightly mortified that the fingers of his left hand had presumptuously arrived to settle into a back and forth caress on her hip apparently of their own accord.

 

“I could literally rip your heart out right now as we stand,” Natasha warned him. She leaned back to rest her shoulders against the glass behind her as she looked up at him. Part of him knew that was true, but the haze of having her so near drowned out that over-cautious voice who warned Steve about every little thing he attempted to do as he navigated daily life.  

 

“Your mission would have been a success- I’d have fallen for the bait,” Steve acknowledged. It was a bitter truth to accept what he understood of his own weaknesses and proclivities, and how he had been repeatedly susceptible to the attempts to manipulate him that others who were trained to understand and manipulate him undertook, but he knew from the bottom of his soul that it was a truth. “It’s become a success even though you didn’t try to achieve it at all in the rest of the time that we’ve known each other. I guess because it was an inevitability, not a gamble, Nat.”

 

He wondered if she believed him, because she didn’t look like she did. Or rather, she looked like she didn’t want to believe him. Steve reached up to twirl one her scarlet ringlets that had frizzed apart back into a curl as he contemplated how to continue. His hand dropped back to her hip and Steve focused on her autumnal forest green gaze once more.

 

“Listen, Nat,” Steve tried to explain, “right now behind you, I can see the stars like I never dreamed I’d be able to, but what I’m going to remember is you. What I want to see is you. I- you know I suck at words, Nat-”

 

“You don’t suck at words,” Natasha whispered.

 

Steve had to take a moment to trace her beautiful features and the poignant reaction they displayed. He’d never seen the like in the set of expressions she had previously allowed him to see, and he could tell that the openness would be addictive for him.

 

“I suck at doing something about my emotions,” Steve corrected himself firmly. “I suck at doing something about my good emotions. I’ve been shit-scared of getting hurt yet that’s all that I’ve been doing to myself. And being scared is really stupid, not to mention exhausting.”

 

“It is,” Natasha agreed tremulously with a thoughtful nod.   

 

“I told you that I love you and I mean it, I do. I love you even if you won’t have me. And that’s okay. I’ll get by. I just realised that even though I know it’s selfish to force you to confront my feelings in having them out in the open, the reason I admitted them was because I wanted you to know that someone does. I wanted you to know that someone does love you, will always love you,” Steve explained with a gentle smile.

 

“I don’t understand you,” Natasha admitted with difficulty. “A lot of the time I wonder if I even know who I am, so how can you be so… positively confident in what you say you feel for me, Steve?”

 

Steve carefully searched for a way to reply. He slowly ran his tongue across his bottom lip and began: “You’ve already given me the answer to that question ages ago. Everybody else was too caught up in the potential to prank me when I was struggling a little bit with the whole complexity of dealing with the world through the internet and all the millions of opinions- do you remember that?” Natasha nodded once. “You told me that if it felt like me then it was me. It didn’t have to sound like me, because humans aren’t static. You’ll always have the potential to like something new to you so past appetites aren’t a fool-proof measure for the now. But you reminded me that what I felt inside would tell me when I was being true to myself.”

 

Natasha’s brow had furrowed slightly as her eyes remained locked with Steve’s.

 

“It may seem easier not to feel, and sometimes it seems as though forgetting to feel is automatic for people like us, but Nat,” Steve explained as his mouth curled into a grin, “I wouldn’t trade the way I feel about you for the world. I tried to stop and I can’t.”

 

“I keep trying and it gets worse, and I’m half convinced that I am some kind of emotional masochist but I don’t really care if I am. I love that it’s you I love. And it’s you that I fell in love with, not a blonde nurse or a brunette ballerina looking to defect. I fell in love with the woman who always directs civilians away from danger and draws enemy fire away from vulnerable people even though I hate that our lives are such that we have to face impossible hazards head on. I fell in love with the woman who understands how horrible it is to have to be violent for a living and also understands the euphoria that comes with having saved someone. I fell in love with the woman who can keep a heart’s most pathetic secrets without judgement or condescension. I fell in love with the woman who still dances, even if it’s just for herself late at night when everyone’s asleep. I fell in love with the woman whose heart only breaks when her loyalty is forgotten by those who shouldn’t ever doubt her. I fell in love with the woman who forgives those same people who hurt her like that.

 

“And I fall deeper in those moments in which that woman- you Natasha- I fall deeper in when it’s obvious that no one is trying to make that happen. I love that you told me to stop freaking out about not being fully caught up on seven decades of pop culture because the average man in his thirties never watched ‘I Love Lucy’ and really the world doesn’t expect me to know things I wasn’t there for. And I love that despite the fact that you told me not to freak out you still understand my need to have those references to interpret the world today. You understand that I need to fit that into my linear perception of the progress of art.

 

“I love that you don’t pretend that people are one dimensional, and that they could never understand. I love that you do know that they do understand even when they pretend they don’t. And I love that that kind of wilful ignorance when turned into cruelty is one of the few things you don’t forgive.”

 

“I love that Natasha because that is _you,_ Natasha,” Steve declared. “That Natasha’s not the role, but the soul- damn it I unintentionally rhymed horribly.” Natasha snorted at that and Steve took her snickering as encouragement to risk carrying on. 

 

“That Natasha,” Steve expounded as he caressed his knuckles along her jaw softly, “the real Natasha is still there when she monotonously mutters the most colourful cuss phrases I have ever heard under her breath in Russian while she drives through traffic- and I’ve met a whole load of crass people in my life.” Natasha arched an eyebrow and smirked at him. Steve smirked back before his expression faded into something more sincerely sombre.

 

“She holds my hand,” he detailed, “during war movies to let me know she’s right next to me so I don’t have flashbacks watching carnage unfold while encapsulated by the cacophony of gunfire and explosions in surround sound. You never even asked; you just did it and still do it. I haven’t watched a war movie, western or action flick without you by my side in years- you don’t let me.

 

“You find me every time I go to the Met or the Guggenheim, and every other instance I use our down time in foreign cities to visit a gallery instead of going out for a beer, and actually listen when I wax lyrical about things like the denotations of fractionally different shades of neon yellow. You drag me to every theatre matinee we can fit in and I love it because I love the way you just light up when the auditorium darkens and the lights go up on stage. I love that expression on your face. I love that light in your eyes.

 

“I love that weird little stifled squeal you make whenever you see a Baikal seal, because they’re your favourite animal and you spend inordinate amounts of time looking at photos, memes and videos of them.”

 

“They’re cute,” Natasha protested.

 

Steve grinned at her lopsidedly before he continued: “I fell in love with the woman who gets the heebie-jeebies just at the mention of a Siberian salamander and somehow actually finds fighting in heeled boots more comfortable than flats, even though you refuse to admit it. I’m in love with you, the most beautiful woman I’ve ever met inside and out-”

 

“I am not _the_ most beautiful woman you’ve ever met,” Natasha interjected sardonically.

 

“You are,” Steve insisted as he leaned in, shifted his weight from his right hand to brace against the window with his forearm, and slipped his left hand down her side to the small of her back to draw her even closer.

 

“I’m not,” Natasha disagreed. Her back arched just so and Steve was damned if he did not think the view looking down was rather enticing. The turtleneck she donned clung perfectly to her form, and the subtle shadows highlighting the small round nubs garnishing the peaks of her breasts were distracting. The natural rosy pout of her parted lips called to him. 

 

“Tell that to my eyes, my heart and the semi in my boxers present for about seventy percent of the time I’m alone with you,” Steve quipped bluntly. He could feel the heat flush over his cheekbones and much lower in his groin as he let himself luxuriate in his Natasha’s proximity. To his surprise and pleasure a matching pinkness suffused lightly over Natasha’s cheeks.

 

“You don’t suck at words,” Natasha repeated, breaking the silent anticipatory tension that had built up between them. Steve tilted his head to the side as he continued to admire the growing blush colouring Natasha slowly. She glanced down at his chest and Steve smirked at the pleasure of knowing he affected her too. He’d seen her fake many a blush before and they never bloomed this wildly or affected her breathing and heart rate. Steve curled in closer to Natasha until the magnetic pull between his lips and hers sang with urgency.

 

“Have I crawled under your skin as well?” Steve asked breathily. Her lips were so close and he had to let his tongue dart out to touch their plush softness.

 

Natasha shook her head as she licked the tip of her tongue where Steve’s had just fleetingly been, and replied: “Far deeper.”

 

“I want to be more than your friend, Natasha. Do you want the same thing?” Steve implored. His hands moved to her waist as he stepped into her, parting her legs with a nudge of his foot before bolstering his weight with his knee against the glass wall behind her and using his pelvis to pin her against it with gentle certainty. Slowly he trailed his fingertips up her sides and back down again. Natasha placed her hands on Steve’s chest and the fingers of her left hand deliberately clutched at the front of his black knit turtleneck, bunching the material over his sternum. She tilted her chin up to Steve and he was drawn back down in his instinctual pursuit of her pout’s tempting plumpness.

 

“I want to be more than your friend, Steve,” Natasha confessed.  

 

Her right hand smoothed over the plane of his pectoral and traced over his collarbone up to run her nails lightly over his nape and into his blond hair. Close enough to nuzzle their noses together, the final millimetres between their lips were overcome. Steve brushed his lips across half the width of Natasha’s lips and back again before the caress was drawn out from corner to corner. With the thrum of his heart pounding in his ears, Steve’s mouth parted to gasp in the air he was forgetting to inhale before he enclosed Natasha’s top lip softly between both of his. Sucking her soft flesh, he got the tiniest taste of her on the tip of his tongue. Her flavour was as sweet as her scent, and, with an unsteady intake of air as he released her, Steve knew he needed more.

 

A tiny whimper of want resonated from Natasha’s throat and a bolt of electric excitement careened through Steve’s body, up his spine and out to his extremities. His hands splayed across her back and her fingers curled tighter around the fabric of his shirt and the strands of sleek short hair on the back of his head.   

 

Steve and Natasha’s mouths moved to merge back into a kiss, softness building into a crush. Natasha caught his bottom lip between her teeth and pulled playfully on it. A low groan of approval rumbled from Steve and he pressed his loins further into the matching heat of Natasha’s core. A cracked mewl escaped from her lips as Natasha met the saccharine challenge with a roll of her hips. Simultaneously their tongues sought to meet and entwine, slipping between the familiar and new environs as they revelled in the heady tingle of pleasure.

 

Flushed with the trill of sensual delight, they broke apart to gauge each other’s response. A haze that was both languorously seductive and intensely lively had settled into Natasha’s eyes. Steve wanted so very much to see where that look would take them. The beginnings of triumphant euphoria began to brew in Steve’s veins and he chased forward to the enjoyment infused in the touch of her lips.

 

The ardent massage of each other’s lips paused a few moments later as Steve felt the pitch of his excitement get too randy for a first real kiss. His head felt like it had been stuffed to the brim with the cushiony mist of cloud nine, and the first mundane thought that formed had to immediately be ejected for lack of room.

 

“We both just ate dried squid, but you taste better than dried squid,” Steve proclaimed.

 

“That might be the chocolate dipping covering up our mint-free faux-pas,” Natasha giggled. Steve was taken by the melodious and rare sound.   

 

“No, your specific taste- your scent too- gets me… high,” Steve revealed. “I’m quite ready to commit the rest of my life to finding this pleasure and the like with you at your leisure.”

 

For a brief moment, Natasha tensed and sad hesitance flashed in her eyes. Steve pressed up close to her again as he followed the impulse to fervently kiss her eyes, her cheek, her nose, her mouth and down her jaw to her neck without a second thought.

 

“Give me a chance?” Steve beseeched as he endeavoured to regain control of his shuddering breath.

 

“Do I deserve a chance?” Natasha asked, sounding as though she meant the question to be rhetorical. Her eyes had shut and the tip of her tongue slipped out to slide over her lush bottom lip. The pull to dive back into kissing resurged.

 

“Do _I_ deserve a chance?” Steve echoed back with supressed strain to the redhead in his embrace. Natasha focused her faceted green gaze back on him. Steve continued: “I don’t think there’s a value system to measure that.”

 

“This is ridiculous- I know I’ll seem like a stubborn old curmudgeon if I disagree with you and I still want to disagree with you,” Natasha groused. “I’m mentally more experienced than you and yet you’re the one spouting wisdoms.”

 

With a wickedly mischievous grin, Steve murmured huskily into Natasha’s ear: “I promise I’ll turn into a drooling idiot if you touch my-”

 

Natasha cut him off with a nip to his bottom lip. “Surveillance, Steve: We’ve already fulfilled Fury’s monthly telenovela-level melodrama quota. Let’s not attach any free porn.”

 

“Will you consider it?” Steve asked when his chuckles died down.

 

“I’ll say ‘yes’, I think,” Natasha answered pedantically. The carnival of joy that had formed in Steve’s veins jostled to a higher frenzy. “I want to say ‘yes’, but I don’t know if that’s wi-”

 

With a deep, reverberating bellow that rivalled the strange flying whale-like creatures that had appeared over New York the first time Steve and Natasha had worked together as Avengers, ‘ _The Monolith’_ lurched and shook violently. The lights flickered off and back on as Steve and Natasha were thrown back from the window panel of the viewing deck. Through ingrained habit, Steve was able to curl Natasha into him as he rolled them to the floor behind them before protectively shielding her from debris and danger with his body. Through ingrained surrender to her trust in him, Natasha let Steve do so. As the ship stabilized the pair lifted their heads to stare at each other in alarm.

 

“You okay?” Steve asked first.

 

“Yeah. You?” Natasha replied.

 

“Yeah,” Steve answered. “It sucks that we handed most of weapons over. Also, I might miss my shield a little bit.”

 

“We are weapons, Steve,” Natasha reminded him as they got to their feet. “I might miss your shield a little bit too. Situation room first?”

 

The decision was made for them when a blood-curdling bawl could be heard coming from the room they had just left Jane alone in. Steve and Natasha hurtled into the room ready to fight the unknown assailants. Amid the smoke and ebbing frazzle of electric bolts crackling over the machinery they beheld the most unexpected sight: Jane Foster with a foldable chair in her hands wailing in energetically on a rather familiar burly blond.

 

“You fucking harbinger of shit! What do you want here?” Jane screeched.

 

“I see you’re not too pleased with me in this plane either,” the victim of her attack replied as he tried to protect himself with his arms.

 

“Thor?!” Steve yelped.

 

“Steve! Natasha! Thank the _Vanir_ , I found you!” Thor beamed as he straightened up, his eyes glowing amber for a second, only to be knocked unconscious by the tiny brunette scientist he had once again momentarily forgotten about.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So that was a very ellipsis filled chapter… 
> 
> The ‘Ballet Theatre’ that Natalia and Steve speak of is the dance company that later became the American Ballet Theatre. The first performance was in January of 1940, so it would have been very new. 
> 
> The Vanir are a group of gods according to Norse Mythology. Basically, the Asgardians are split into 2 groups: The Vanir and the Æsir. Thor’s part of the Æsir. Long ago, the two factions went to war and the Æsir won. The Vanir may have been assimilated. Also, it’s hinted that Heimdall may be part of the Vanir in mythology.
> 
> You guys… Chris Evans was in South Africa (my country)… I’d seriously actually tolerate having to live in Cape Town for getting to witness that. I’d even deal with the tint of the light- it’s so…crisp and blue-white, which is unsettling if you grew up in a place with red soil and are visually inclined.
> 
> So, anyway, after months of me thinking about words, and second guessing those words, and forgetting better words, and going over the text to add five thousand extra words, and procrastinating by looking at Romanogers pictures on Pinterest, and worrying about whether behavioural themes were repeated too often in the text and too obviously, and making odd observations about character traits, and worrying if the text was too emotion-dense, and even turning to reading not very good free ebooks in the romance genre with pictures of tanned ripped male torsos accompanied by titles in ‘Lucida Handwriting’ font on the covers wondering whether I’m missing something or I’m just bleh… voilà. I hope this chapter was worth the wait. 
> 
> On a completely random note: when did buying a cell phone become so stressful?! I have had to get insurance for my phone screen and figure out which screen protector would be best and not lead to unresponsive-touch-screen fury(was not successful in that endeavour). Also, downloading apps, trying to remember passwords when I’m not sure if I ever even set up an account, and having to remind myself that my phone is not part of SKYNET is fatiguing. I’m getting irrational reminders of ‘Ex Machina’ every time my phone asks for permissions.


End file.
